TrtE BORDER! A 
OF CZARfll'VNI) 



P O U L T N E Y 
B I G E L O W. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



S^ap. ©ijjHjrigfyt Ifo, 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 








GERMAN CUIRASSIERS 



THE BORDERLAND 



OF 



Czar and Kaiser 



NOTES FROM BOTH SIDES OF 



lhe Russian Frontier 



BY 



POULTNEY' BIGELOW 



ILLUSTRATED BY FREDERIC REMINGTON 




NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

l8 95 



Copyright, 1894, by Harper & Brothers. 
All rights reserved. 






TO 
GEORGE KENNAN 

My dear Kennau, — You have travelled Siberia at the risk of your life, 
aud published the trtith without malice. 

This dedication is for the benefit of the few who still question your state- 
ments. I tried to do so once, and became, Your sincere friend, 

POULTNEY BlGELOW 
Chelsea Embankment, London 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

GERMAN CUIRASSIERS Frontispiece 

RUSSIAN INFANTRYMAN - . . I 

ADVANCE OF RUSSIAN INFANTRY 5 

A BOLD DRAGOON 9 

"DRAGOONS, MOUNT!" 13 

ONE OF THE CZAR'S BODY-GUARD . 17 

SHOEING COSSACK HORSES 21 

COSSACKS SCOUTING 25 

THE SOLDIER'S SONG 29'' 

A HAIR-CUT IN A CAVALRY-STABLE 33 

KUBAN COSSACK, IMPERIAL GUARD CORPS 37 

THE RUSSIAN MILITARY GENDARME 41' 

ONE OF THE CZAR'S PIRATES 45 

THE THIRD SECTION AT WORK $1 

"I THOUGHT I HEARD YOU SAY, 'COME IN !'" . . . . 57 

IN THE CAFE TOMBOFF . 6l 

A GENDARME IN WARSAW „ . 67 

SCENE IN A POLISH VILLAGE , • • 73 " 

GENDARME, ST. PETERSBURG . . . . 8l" 

"TWO OFFICERS ARE WATCHING YOU " .87 

A PAGE OF SKETCHES MADE ON THE NIEMEN .... 91 
THE FRONTIER GUARD AND THE CUSTOM-HOUSE . . . 95 L " 

A RUSSIAN JEW 98 

JEWS AT A PEASANT MARKET I05 

SMUGGLERS ON THE FRONTIER Ill 

JEWISH SMUGGLERS AND REFUGEES IN THE HANDS OF 

THE DRAGOONS .............. Iig 



VI ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE / 

JEWISH RECRUITS 125 

CAPTAIN ZINNOWITZ 131 

DRAGOON OFFICER IN STREET DRESS I33 

CUIRASSIER I37 

A HEAVY SWELL — GUARD HUSSAR 141 

A STUDY IN SOCIOLOGY IN BERLIN I45 

THE OLD GENERAL . , . . „ . 149 

THE "SUB" ..'... \$if 

UHLAN OFFICER IN FIELD TRIM . . . . . . . . . 1 57 

THE OFFICERS' MESS . . . .' l6l 

FIELD DRILL OF PRUSSIAN INFANTRY 165^ 

AN OFFICER OF ARTILLERY l6cT 

HUSSARS SCOUTING 173 

AN OFFICER OF DRAGOONS IN THE FIELD ..... 176 
CAVALRYMAN WATERING HIS HORSE . . . . . . .177 

A JOLLY PARTY BY THE WAYSIDE l8l"' 

A DRAGOON TRUMPETER 185 

CUIRASSIER ON STAFF DUTY 187' 

TYPES OF PRUSSIAN OFFICERS IQO-lgi 

MOUNTED HUSSAR I93 

ON THE ROAD TO TRAKEHNEN ......... I95 

COLTS PLAYING NEAR A HERD 197 ' 

MASSAGE OF A COLT'S KNEES 201 

A " TRAKEHNER " HORSE-WRANGLER 203 

BRINGING OUT A STALLION 207 "' 

THE RIDE THROUGH THE WOOD WITH THE OLD FORESTER 211 ' 

ARREST OF A POACHER IN THE FOREST 215 

/ 
PEASANTS NEAR ROMINTEN 219 

GERMAN PEASANT, EAST PRUSSIA 222 

DEER AT ROMINTEN 224 

THE EMPEROR'S HUNTING-LODGE ......... 227^ 

A FORESTER. ............... 23I 

A STALLION ....... ......... 235 



THE BORDERLAND 

OF 

CZAR AND KAISER 




IN THE CZAR'S BARRACKS 



Y friend Chumski, in the 
fatigue uniform of the 
170th Infantry Regiment, 
met me at the station 
somewhere between Kasan 
and Moscow. He threw 
both arms about me, kissed 
me affectionately, led me 
to a carriage drawn by a 
pair of lively Arabs, and 
whirled me off to his quar- 
ters. Chumski is of Polish 
extraction, and commands 
the best regiment in Rus- 
sia. This needs explana- 
tion, for it is well known 
that no Pole can rise be- 
yond the grade of a captain 
unless he becomes so Rus- 



2 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

sified in name, language, and religion as to 
pass for a good orthodox Slav. But Colonel 
Chumski is a rare man. His nationality has 
kept him from being a general, or commanding 
a regiment of the guards, but, on the other 
hand, his achievements in war have been so 
uniformly brilliant, the troops under him have 
shown such perfection of training, that when a 
Russian officer wants to compliment his men he 
can only say, " You are good enough for Chum- 
ski's regiment." The men of the 170th all love 
Chumski — first and foremost, because he does 
not steal. It seems odd to lay stress on this 
point, but to the private it makes all the differ- 
ence in the world whether the regimental fund is 
spent on good food, or whether the colonel takes 
it with him to the card-table. Then, too, Chum- 
ski has spent much of his life in real war. He 
fought the campaign against Turkistan in 1867; 
in 1870 he helped at Samarcand ; he was at 
Khiva in the campaign of 1873; at Khokan in 
1875 and 1876; then in the great war against 
Turkey of 1877 an< ^ 1878. From that time down 
to the expedition to Penjdeh, in 1885, he was 
always in harness, fighting British interests in the 
far East, and learning the art of war in the best 
of all schools. 

Said he to me once : " Do you know why Rus- 
sia is so successful in her far Eastern warfare? 
It is because she sends out there, not her 



IN THE BARRACKS OF THE CZAR 3 

stupid Russians, but the quick-witted Poles, and 
others like them, whom she suspects of having 
' ideas.' The Russian officers serve in Poland, 
the Polish officers on the Caspian and other 
. remote posts, from which they could not return 
in time to help their country people in case of a 
revolution. That is true also of the privates, but 
not to so great an extent." 

Speaking of ideas, reminds me that recently in 
Moscow a school-teacher asked a little girl to 
define the word idea. The child answered, 
naively, " An idea is what is opposed to the 
government !" 

Chumski did not tell me, for he is a modest 
man, that the reason he was ordered to duty 
near the capital was that the government need- 
ed sadly men of his capacity to help get the 
army in fighting condition. (It may be as well 
to add here, in parenthesis, that I am concealing 
every detail that can identify my friend.) 

I was pining for sleep when I arrived, and 
therefore, after a cup of coffee and a roll, lay 
down on a couch and was soon sound asleep. 
When I awoke, after a couple of hours, three 
soldiers stood at the foot of my bed, motionless 
and silent. At first, with the sleep fog veiling 
my faculties, they appeared agents of the Third 
Section demanding my passports, and I have a 
confused idea of shuddering with the suspicion, 
" What if Chumski has been ordered to arrest 



4 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

me!" But after rubbing my eyes the situation 
clears up cheerfully. A Cossack is there with 
my mount ; he is to escort me to the drill-ground. 
The two orderlies are to help me dress. One 
holds a basin, the other pours out water upon 
my hands in a manner that reminded me of 
China. After a scanty wash, they help me into 
my riding breeches and boots with a dexterity 
suggesting that the colonel himself looked upon 
dressing and undressing as eminently work for 
servants. At the door stood a four -year -old 
Cossack horse with training-lines as well as a 
curb rein ; he was a beautiful animal, full of fire, 
a trifle larger than usual, and vastly better bred 
than those one sees in the troop. Chumski did 
me great honor in allowing me to ride this 
precious beast that was destined to serve as his 
best charger, and I was highly flattered, for it 
presupposed that he had formed a fair opinion of 
my horsemanship when we last rode together in 
the Peloponnesus. We mounted without loss of 
time, I signalled my Cossack to act as guide, and 
away we dashed at a gallop over the market- 
place, amid peasants, pottery, and cabbages, 
clattering across the long bridge over the Volga, 
and out into the open country. The Cossack and 
his horse were as one, but something like a 
clever nurse and a spoiled child. Each under- 
stands and loves the other, but neither com- 
pletely under control. My orderly did not want 



IN THE BARRACKS OF THE CZAR J 

his horse to be a slave, and recognized perfectly 
that horses, like children, have their whims and 
humors, and must be coaxed and reasoned with, 
but rarely punished. The morning was fresh, 
our mounts also. They capered and danced and 
bounded from side to side, and acted as only 
horses can act whose masters have an excellent 
seat, light hands, and an indulgent disposition. 
The German troop horse is more perfectly 
trained, more steady ; one may say that he re- 
sembles the German scholar in being thoroughly 
reliable, but rarely brilliant. No cavalry horse 
approaches the German in the qualities demanded 
for that branch of the service, as no students, the 
world over, equal those of Germany in power and 
perseverance. I was speaking of our mounts 
only as pleasant saddle-horses for an individual. 
My saddle, too, the regular troop saddle, was 
comfortable — more so than that of the German 
cavalry, but by no means so light or useful as 
the McClellan saddle of our service. 

After half an hour's ride we reached a level 
space, three sides of which were flanked by two- 
story buildings — the barracks of the regiment. 
Colonel Chumski asked if I would like to inspect 
his regiment, which, of course, I was very glad to 
do. We rode together between their lines, and 
I had abundant proof that the men were sound 
and well cared for. They were then put through 
a series of tactical evolutions, which they per- 



8 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

formed as well as any guard regiment I have 
ever seen, after which the band broke into a 
march, and we had a little review, first by com- 
pany and then by battalion front. The men 
were in campaign outfit, and made a most ex- 
cellent impression on me. When a company 
preserved a particularly correct line, the colonel 
called to them an acknowledgment in Russian, 
upon which the whole company burst into a roar, 
which was to me unintelligible, but which Chum- 
ski said was a vote of thanks from the men. 
When a line displeased him he did not conceal 
his opinion of their performance, and the slovenly 
men were promptly berated by their officers; in 
one instance it seemed to me that a man received 
a blow on his cheek from the officer's sword 
guard. In any other regiment I should have 
noted a dozen blows. When the review was over, 
the colonel gave the signal, and the whole regi- 
ment started at the height of its speed, each 
man for himself, all rushing to quarters, not in 
a perfunctory quickstep, but so violently as to 
suggest that some great reward was awaiting 
each man at the end of his journey. As they 
rushed, they burst into a hurrah that sounded 
like the roar of the ocean on a coral reef. 

When the rush had passed away, and we stood 
alone, I told him that I was amazed at the ex- 
cellence of his regiment, and wished to see what 
the men could do individually. Accordingly an 




A BOLD DRAGOON 



IN THE BARRACKS OF THE CZAR II 

order was given, and in a few minutes out 
marched a company in full campaign kit, carry- 
ing, however, not the real rifle, but one entirely 
of wood. I was now treated to an obstacle 
race, in which the field consisted of one company 
of the 170th. The course was about half a mile 
long, and in covering that distance the men had 
to jump into ditches six feet deep, climb up 
steep banks twelve feet high, crawl under beams, 
vault bars, pass a stream by walking along a 
narrow plank, leap hurdles, and finally scale 
a smooth plank wall about eight feet high by 
vaulting over its top. To follow the rapidly 
shifting movements of these one hundred men 
was as difficult as watching a circus with three 
rings going at once, and when the last man had 
finished the course, and the company formed in 
line before us, my eyes still danced with a pano- 
rama of legs and arms gyrating over parapets 
and lofty beams. Chumski said something to 
the men, and was immediately answered by a 
unanimous roar. I asked him what it all meant. 

" Nothing," he said. "J only told them they 
had done well, and they answered that they were 
glad to earn the colonel's approbation. 

" You see," said he, " I have lived a great deal 
with soldiers when real war was going on, and I 
know that the soldier is a child. You know that 
children like a kind word now and then; they 
like to be patted on the head ; they like to be 



12 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

admired ; that encourages them. Very well ; so 
it is with my men. They like me to admire and 
praise them ; and they work very much better 
when I treat them as a father does a child. Of 
course I punish them too, for I must have disci- 
pline." 

What struck me particularly about Chumski's 
troops was the enthusiasm with which they did 
their work. They took their obstacles as though 
participants in an athletic contest. 

The men of this regiment wore boots that 
reached almost to. the knees, green trousers 
tucked in loosely, and a round green forage-cap 
similar to that in the German army. Their tunic 
was not of green cloth, such as they wear in cold 
weather, but simply of coarse unbleached linen, 
sitting snug around the throat and falling to the 
cuff when the hand is at the man's side. It is a 
loose and comfortable garment for gymnastic ex- 
ercise. I admired it later, when some of the 
regiment gave us an exhibition of military row- 
ing. Their knapsacks were fastened on by two 
straps coming over the shoulders and fastening 
at the belt, thus not only relieving the weight be- 
hind, but relieving also that of the two cartridge- 
belts which hang at the belt in front. In gen- 
eral, all their equipment is copied from German 
models, and in war-time I can imagine many a 
blunder caused by mistaking German for Russian 
troops, particularly when the mist hangs over the 



IN THE BARRACKS OF THE CZAR 1 5 

meadows in the early morning. This applies 
only when the undress cap is worn. The Russian 
infantry head-piece is a round woolly hat, only 
high enough to clear the crown of the man's 
head, flat on top, with no rim or peak, and 
adorned in front with a brass double-headed 
eagle. The German's helmet seems to me bet- 
ter, in that it affords ventilation in hot weather, 
and sheds the rain from a man's neck. It also 
shields the eyes from the sun, if that be an ad- 
vantage. The difference between the helmet 
and the woolly hat is practically the only one 
that separates the great body of Russian infantry 
from that of Germany. 

" Shall we take a look at the barracks ?" sug- 
gested the colonel. " Nothing would suit me bet- 
ter," I answered ; so leaving our horses in charge 
of the Cossack, Chumski led the way through a 
series of vast spaces occupied mainly by little 
wooden beds. Each little bed had on it a hard 
mattress, a pillow, and a coarse- woollen blanket. 
Beneath each bed was a box, in which the sol- 
dier's kit was kept, and at short intervals through- 
out the buildings were chromo portraits of the 
czar, and very gaudy pictures of Russian saints. 
The barracks were entirely of wood, the ceilings 
low, and the windows infrequent, yet so clean 
was everything kept that I detected no disagree- 
able odor. In the kitchen I helped myself to a 
taste of the soup that was simmering in vast cal- 



1 6 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

drons over the brick oven, and made up my mind 
that I could stand a pretty long canoe cruise if 
my food were no worse than this. There are two 
fast-days in the week — Wednesday and Friday — 
and this was one of them, so that all they had 
was lentil soup. Black bread went with the 
soup — not such very bad bread either. They 
had a drink that suggested the mead we use at 
harvest-time, consisting of water in which rye 
bread has been absorbed. Of this I drank a 
whole glass with relish. So far, then, I had 
stumbled on nothing about the Russian soldier's 
life that would have discouraged me from enlist- 
ing had I been brought up to accept the czar's 
word as law. 

" Do you have much desertion?" I asked. 

" Not many in my regiment," answered the 
colonel, with complacency; "my men are pretty 
well cared for. 

" But," said he, " the Jews have rather a rough 
time of it. I have about a hundred of them in 
this regiment, and they do their work as well as 
any of them. In most cases, however, they are 
exposed to much insult and brutality. Some- 
times the soldiers beat them unmercifully, and it 
is no wonder that they try to desert. The rough 
peasant has a traditional hatred of the Jew, and 
if the officers of the regiment are not energetic in 
setting their faces against it, there is pretty sure 
to be some deviltry against them. The Russian 




ONE OF THE CZAR S BODY-GUARD 



IN THE BARRACKS OF THE CZAR 19 

peasant finds it delightful to get even with the 
man whom he looks upon as the author of all his 
ills." 

In the twenty-seven " governments " making up 
the western frontier of Russia, ten of which con- 
stitute Poland, the Jews are very much crowded 
together. In 1874 Russia followed Germany in 
adopting the principle of universal military ser- 
vice, and consequently forcing Jews into the 
army. The government has only published the 
statistics of desertion between 1876 and 1883, 
and for these years the number of Jew deserters 
in those districts amounted to a round 90,000 
men. The government ceased then to publish 
such figures, but it is estimated that the number 
of Jews to-day who have run away from their 
regiments, or at least have failed to appear after 
passing the necessary physical tests, and after 
being ordered out — that this number is at least 
1 50,000. 

As we galloped home to the noon-day dinner, 
I noticed that my colonel greeted the men of 
other regiments than his own by merely conform- 
ing to the usual military requirements ; but when 
he met any of his 170th, he shouted out a hearty 
good-day to them, which they answered with a 
burst of strange sound intended to convey the 
notion, " we are glad to have our colonel's greet- 
ing." This struck me as a very pleasant inter- 
change of civility — much better than the silent 



20 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

and perfunctory ordeal in vogue among Western 
armies. In the German army the Emperor still 
greets his Grenadier Guards by a hearty " Good- 
morning," and is answered as heartily as in Rus- 
sia ; but this is in Germany as historically unique 
as the " beef-eaters " at the Tower of London. 
In Russia the life of the people is what it was in 
England when Queen Bess boxed the ears of her 
favorites — an odd medley of barbarism and pa- 
rental gentleness. 

Colonel Chumski made a splendid dinner in 
my honor. When he embraced me at our fare- 
well meeting in the shadow of Mars Hill, he 
promised me all sorts of good things in case I 
came to Russia, and he more than kept his word. 
Half a dozen of his officers were present, most 
of them with either German or Polish names, 
and half of them speaking either French or Ger- 
man. Three orderlies in top-boots and linen 
tunics served us with a series of luxuries, com- 
mencing with a variety of cold relishes, such 
as caviare, pickled salmon, anchovy, cucumber, 
chopped egg, and several kinds of native whiskey. 
The courses succeeded each other as with us, but 
as regards wine, pretty much the whole table 
was covered with bottles of choice brands from 
Madeira, the Crimea, Tokay, Bordeaux — every- 
where but the Rhine. The host was a generous 
toast-master, and acted on the principle that the 
guest who left his table sober went away unsatis- 



IN THE BARRACKS OF THE CZAR 23 

fied. Personally, I am almost a total abstainer, 
and had some difficulty in finishing the meal 
without hurting the susceptibilities of my kind 
friends. There were a great many toasts offered, 
and much good feeling displayed, all of which is 
now merged in the memory of a pleasant meet- 
ing. After dinner we adjourned into the colonel's 
reception-room, in which were two great divans, 
on which we sat cross-legged, after the manner 
of Turks, smoked, chatted, and sipped coffee, pre- 
pared after the manner of the lower Danube and 
the East generally. 

The colonel was very communicative now, 
though he was not reticent before. I attached 
some importance to his opinion, because he had 
not only seen his own troops in different cam- 
paigns, but knew European troops as well. 

" That's a fine fellow, that Cossack," said I. 

" Yes," answered Chumski ; " the best stuff we 
have. Pity we have not more." After his other 
guests had retired, he took up the subject once 
more, and said : " The Russian is a poor horse- 
man, and drill cannot make a cavalryman. 
Horses are cheap and abundant, yet we never 
ride unless we are forced to. The Cossack is 
otherwise ; he loves his horse, he is full of re- 
sources, and is worth all the rest of the cavalry 
put together. Our cavalry of the guard is very 
showy and well trained, but I prefer the Cossack 
for my purposes." 



24 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

Of the guard cavalry there is very little that 
corresponds to Chumski's description, however. 
The so - called Chevalier Garde corresponds to 
the famous Lifeguards of London, who attract 
all the nursery -maids of St. James and White- 
hall when they solemnly move in and out of 
their strange sentry-boxes. They wear a double- 
headed silver eagle perched with outspread wings 
over a gilded helmet ; have gilded breastplate, 
blue-gray trousers, and enormous boots. On fes- 
tive occasions their tunic is white, but ordinarily 
dark green. In the whole Russian army there are, 
however, only four cuirassier regiments, and these 
are all stationed, for parade purposes, in or near 
the capital. Then there are two regiments of 
hussars, similar to the German, one red and the 
other green, and two regiments of uhlans, also 
easily mistaken for German. These are the only 
cavalry regiments that are showy and at the same 
time strikingly like those of Germany. The bulk 
of the Russian, as of the American cavalry, is 
composed of dragoons, who wear a peculiar head- 
piece, part fur, part cloth, with the metal double 
eagle at the front, readily distinguishable from 
the fur hat of the Cossack, which does not show 
so much fur in front. The fifty odd dragoon reg- 
iments of the Russian army, like ours, expect to 
fight afoot as well as in the saddle ; are drilled 
to attack in masses, but at the same time do 
their best to emulate the peculiar virtues of the 



IN THE BARRACKS OF THE CZAR 27 

Cossack. Remington and I passed two squad- 
rons of these dragoons quartered in a string of 
dirty peasant huts, about five miles from the 
Prussian frontier. Their horses were excellent 
in build and condition, and the men looked like 
good rough-and-ready skirmishers, but there was 
no ground near the place where any other tactics 
could have been practised save dismounting and 
attacking from behind trees. This explains, per- 
haps, why to-day so much of the cavalry in Po- 
land is composed of material which, in Germany, 
would be considered fit only for scouting. 

"You Americans like rough-and-ready fight- 
ing," said the colonel, " and I will show you some 
this afternoon, if you like a hard ride." This was 
delightful. The wine had evidently made him 
confiding as well as communicative. He clapped 
his hands, ordered horses, took a last glass of 
vodka, and in a few moments we were clattering 
out into the lonesome country, with the Cossack 
orderly behind. 

There is nothing much sadder than Russia, and 
Remington's reference to. it once as " the sad 
gray land " seemed more and more apt the more 
I saw of this mournful empire. I have seen it in 
the merry harvest-time and again in early June, 
the seasons when the rest of the world does most 
of its smiling and singing. The Russian peas- 
ants that have crossed my path, whether on- the 
Black Sea or the Baltic, in St. Petersburg or the 



28 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

great Minsk Swamp, have struck me as being 
peculiarly like neglected cattle, having " neither 
pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity;" they 
look like people who have no change of clothing, 
and care for none ; who are so attached to the 
soil that they like it even next to the skin ; their 
dress takes the color of the land they till, and 
when Russian peasants stop in the fields to rest, 
the color blends with the surrounding feat- 
ures as does that of a partridge in a field of 
stubble. 

My meditations were disturbed by the sound 
of rifle-firing. "What is that?" I asked. " Our 
scouts," answered the colonel. " Follow me," 
and he led the way as rapidly as practicable off 
the main road in the direction of the sound we 
had heard. At first it was difficult moving, ow- 
ing to the branches and underbrush, but soon we 
struck a forest trail, and went ahead at a good 
trot. A cheer greeted our ears, and we soon af- 
terwards came upon twenty soldiers, in command 
of Lieutenant Schiitzenberg, busily occupied in 
taking the insides out of a brown bear, prepara- 
tory to carrying him off with them. A sapling 
was cut down and trimmed of its branches, and 
on this Bruin was swung. The green - coated 
scouts then tramped off into the woods in the 
opposite direction from that in which we had 
come. Soon I noticed, here and there between 
the trees, single figures of soldiers who surround- 




t: : -"IiiiP 



:;^m^MM;m>&^^ 



IN THE BARRACKS OF THE CZAR 3 1 

ed the little column at a distance, in order to 
give warning in case of danger. 

Lieutenant Schtitzenberg saluted the colonel , 
we dismounted and walked with him behind the 
bear - carriers, while I learned from their com- 
mander something of this operation. 

In the German army every soldier is taught to 
act intelligently on outpost service and in scout- 
ing operations, and this is not too much to re- 
quire in a country where every soldier reads and 
writes, and can readily understand a map and 
compass. In Russia, however, where nine-tenths 
of the people cannot read or write, and have lost 
the faculty of thinking consecutively, the army 
cannot teach the soldier much more than to 
move as with a machine. In order to have a 
force of good men for picket-work and advance- 
skirmishing, they have adopted this plan : 

Each company sends four of its most intelli- 
gent men to a select body called the scouting- 
corps, and as the Russian regiment has four bat- 
talions, with four companies each, that gives a 
regimental scout force of -sixty-four. This ser- 
vice is very popular, for it is full of variety, and 
though the hardship is great, the food is good, 
for hunting and fishing are in the programme. 
The men are practised in every kind of wood- 
craft, and are expected to develop as much in- 
genuity and self-reliance as an Indian scout in 
our service. They must sail, row, swim, climb, 



32 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

find their way by map and compass, slip through 
the enemy's lines, procure every variety of infor- 
mation, and escape capture at all hazards. 

" They are splendid fellows," said Schiitzen- 
berg, in answer to a question of mine. " Here is 
what they did last winter when snow was on the 
ground and floating ice in the streams : 

" You must know that we attach very great 
importance to creeping up close to the enemy 
and watching his movements. Well, for a little 
practice in this respect I called my sixty -four 
men together one morning in the barrack-yard, 
and divided them into two sides, each com- 
manded by non-commissioned officers. I pointed 
out on the map a position which one side was to 
watch, and indicated the direction from which an 
attack was to be anticipated. Another position 
I selected for the other side. Neither side knew 
what the other side was to attempt, but each had 
orders to slip behind the lines of the other, and 
steal three flags that had been posted about a 
mile and a half in the rear of the line that was to 
be protected. The difficult part of the problem 
was that neither side knew anything of the posi- 
tions beyond what was shown them on the map 
in the barrack-yard, and the non-commissioned 
officers had to transmit this knowledge to their 
men. 

" Each party found the right position, and after 
posting sentry, detached a party to steal the flags 



IN THE BARRACKS OF THE CZAR 35 

of the enemy. Six men of the one party went 
off, each on his own account. Two of them 
were captured, one of them failed to find the 
flags because he could not remember the topog- 
raphy of the map, and one succeeded in finding 
the flags and bringing them back to the non- 
commissioned officer. The remaining two found 
the spot after the flags were gone, and described 
it, so that there was no doubt that they had 
been there. The six men detailed on the other 
side for the work remained together, and were 
discovered when close to the picket line. They 
were fired upon • two were captured, and the 
remaining four pursued to a stream forty feet 
wide near here. In spite of the floating ice, they 
sprang in and struggled to the other side. The 
pursuers hesitated a moment at the sight of the 
ice -blocks, then they followed. One was capt- 
ured in the water because he was hampered by 
the ice. The rest escaped ; but one of the fol- 
lowers managed, in spite of his ice bath, to sneak 
away with the flags of the enemy. 

" They are invaluable to us," said Schiitzen- 
berg, enthusiastically ; " and for our country as 
good as cavalry when it comes to reconnoissance. 
For what can cavalry do in forest and swamp and 
on boggy roads? 

" Last summer a scout corps of the 6th Oren- 
burg Cossacks covered in two months 1800 versts 
(a verst is about five-sixths of a mile), most of 



36 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

the distance being rough country, without roads 
of any kind, over glaciers and across rapid 
streams. This was the famous Pamir expedition, 
from which the scout corps returned in excellent 
health. 

" Pamir is close to the British India line," add- 
ed Schiitzenberg, with a sly wink, " and we are 
constantly sending out ' scientific ' expeditions 
to explore the borders of our uncertain neigh- 
bors." 

The so-called scientific expeditions of Russia 
are, as is well known, only so in name. They 
are merely military reconnoissances, with just 
enough science about them to bring back to 
the war department a rough idea of what the 
territory would be worth if annexed to the 
empire. 

Pretty soon our conversation was interrupted 
by shouts behind us, and a dozen of the scout 
corps came crashing through the thicket in hot 
pursuit of those who had shot the bear. Their 
top-boots were coated with mud, and for that 
matter they nearly all showed that they had done 
some heavy floundering in the swamp. They 
carried their rifles like practised hunters, and fol- 
lowed the enemy with energy, hoping to capture 
some of them before they reached the Volga. 
We let them pass, then followed in their wake. 
I was thoroughly roused. It seemed as though 
I was taking part in a most exciting game ; and 



^JgpT'~~ 




KUBAN COSSACK, IMPERIAL GUARD CORPS. 



IN THE BARRACKS OF THE CZAR 39 

for that matter there was a huge stake in this 
race — namely, the big brown bear ; for the win- 
ners would most certainly bag the bear. On we 
went, crashing through the underbrush, flounder- 
ing in swamp, now and then getting a trot on 
hard bottom. The pursuers showed excellent 
grit, and that rare quality designated by Rem- 
ington as " sporting blood." But they lost the 
stake, for when we emerged on the river-bank we 
saw the other party sailing away home in a big 
boat — in fact, they were already skinning their 
booty. When they saw their discomfited pursu- 
ers they set up a roar of triumphant cheering, 
which fell on our ears as the news of a great 
calamity. There was a great feast in the regi- 
ment that night, and the big brown bear disap- 
peared under many savory disguises and amid 
many bottles of excellent wine. The skin was 
presented to me by the colonel of the regiment 
amid most friendly expressions, and will always 
remind me of several sturdy Russian soldiers, 
who made me for a time forget that I was under 
police supervision. 

As we rode home towards evening I asked the 
colonel a little in detail about the Russian scout 
corps. 

" Here is an outfit," said he : " A sail-boat with 
2 masts, holding 18 people; 2 row-boats, each 
holding a dozen ; 5 bicycles, 10 heavy sporting- 
rifles, 10 compasses, 20 pairs of snow-shoes, 30 



4-0 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

pairs of skates, a large fishing-net, and good win- 
ter outfit for 64 men." 

" Do you call that your museum?" I asked, 
" or am I to understand that you give your scout 
company a thorough all-round athletic train- 
ing?" 

" This regiment does not run a museum," an- 
swered the colonel. " Far from it. Every arti- 
cle I have enumerated represents a means of 
special training. To-day the sporting-rifles, com- 
passes, maps, and boats were practised. We do 
a great deal of sailing and rowing, for a good 
sailor makes a good rough-and-ready man at any- 
thing. When the roads are good, we practise 
despatch-carrying on bicycles. 

"Then we have splendid fishing all about here, 
and in a campaign men should know how to pro- 
vide for their mess. In winter we track on snow- 
shoes, and skate wherever possible. But bear- 
hunting is, after all, the main sport. My men 
learn more at bear-hunting than in the barrack- 
yard, and when I command troops I always look 
to my bear-hunters." 

Of course the training which the scout corps 
gets varies with the climate and the physical nat- 
ure of the country. Every regiment has not the 
water needful for its navy, and skating cannot be 
indulged in towards the South. But the princi- 
ple of instruction is the same, whether in Fin- 
land or Turkistan, Poland or Siberia. The scout 




THE RUSSIAN MILITARY GENDARME 



IN THE BARRACKS OF THE CZAR 43 

corps devotes itself to every form of athletic ex- 
ercise that can make its men valuable in a scout- 
ing campaign, and that can give it the special 
education that will enable it to support itself 
when separate from its base. 

" European people are so conceited," said 
Chumski, " that they do not know what we are 
doing in the midst of this stagnant population 
of peasants. The scout company of sixty-four 
men that I have here is just the sort of stuff that 
General Sherman could have appreciated in his 
famous march to the sea ; it is just the stuff that 
made the famous march from Boston to Quebec 
in the winter of 1775 and '76; it is just the stuff 
that Napoleon should have had in 18 12, when he 
tried to march half a million men from Paris to 
Moscow." 

As we walked our horses slowly homeward in 
the twilight after our pretty stiff day's work, we 
caught now and then on the still air the sound of 
men chanting in unison, then the tramp, tramp 
of soldiers, and finally the gray outline of a com- 
pany of the 170th, who were taking their regu- 
lar evening outing before retiring to bed. The 
colonel gave them a hearty good -evening; the 
singing stopped, and instead came a series of 
shouts that burst in unison with the marching 
time, and meant that the men returned the 
compliment. Then the melancholy song once 
more commenced, and the gray column disap- 



44 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

peared in the dusty dimness of the setting 
sun. 

Chumski roused me from my brooding by say- 
ing : " I think that Russia has the simplest and 
most useful field uniform in Europe ; much more 
so than Germany. The emperor Alexander III. 
introduced a complete change in the uniforming 
of our men— first, out of economy ; secondly, in 
order to make the national costume more popu- 
lar. Green is our national color, as blue is that 
of Germany, and red that of England. Our na- 
tional green is seen not only on the backs and 
heads of all our infantry, but on the trousers as 
well, the only other color being the distinguish- 
ing bits at the shoulder and collar and cap band 
to mark regiments or ranks." 

One exception I had noted at the Roumanian 
border, and again on that of Lithuania, the ever- 
watchful frontier patrol, which is distinguished 
from the rest of the army by having gray-blue 
trousers, a double row of brass buttons down the 
front, and only one cartridge-box at the belt 
instead of two. I took a good look at those fel- 
lows when I first met them, and shall not soon 
forget them. 

" Buttons are a nuisance," said the colonel. 
" They have to be cleaned, they wear away the 
cloth, they are heavy, they attract the attention 
of the enemy. Our infantry has abolished them 
everywhere but on the frontier patrol, and there 




ONE OF THE CZARS PIRATES 

From a sketch made in St. Petersburg- 



IN THE BARRACKS OF THE CZAR 47 

they still remain, I suppose because those fellows 
do police duty, and must look impressive. Our 
tunic folds over the breast, and is fastened by 
five hooks and eyes that are not seen and do not 
catch in everything. The Germans are too fond 
of show. They should have discarded buttons 
long ago. 

" Our cavalry has more latitude in matter of 
uniform, yet the great bulk of it are dragoons 
who wear green coats, green caps, and gray-blue 
trousers something like those of the United 
States army. The Astrakhan Cossack, the Don 
Cossack, the Ural Cossack — these are all blue, 
and there are a few more varying uniforms, but 
taking the whole army there is very little differ- 
ence between the men of one corps and those of 
another. The artillery, engineers, scouts, all 
wear the complete green dress, and their over- 
coat is the historic gray, very loose, very long, 
very warm. People outside have an idea that 
we have a horde of gorgeous, barbarous cavalry 
in theatrical dress. This is a mistake. They are 
barbarous enough, I admit, but their uniform is 
now pretty tame everywhere. The emperor 
still keeps his so-called body-guard or imperial 
escort in a native savage dress, with high fur hat, 
red or brown coat, with cartridge-cases across 
the chest. 

" The Kuban Cossacks are like them, with hor- 
rible knives in their belt, a rifle in a shaggy fur 



48 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

case strung over their shoulder, and a general ap- 
pearance of having just come from some butcher- 
ing expedition in central Asia." 

Remington and I noted a number of those 
fellows about St. Petersburg, and made up our 
minds that between nihilists and Amoor Cos- 
sacks we preferred the nihilists. If the President 
of the United States should invite a band of 
Apaches to constitute his body-guard, we might 
get some notion of the incongruity as it struck 
us in St. Petersburg. 



WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 



IT was on the railway between Alexandrowo 
and Warsaw. Remington and I had secured 
a compartment to ourselves, and were looking for- 
ward to a comfortable rest, stretched each upon 
a soft seat. We were on the " express," which 
in Russia means a train that does not carry cat- 
tle, and occasionally attains a speed of twenty- 
five miles an hour. Shortly after leaving the 
German frontier a tall bearded official, wearing 
an Astrakhan hat, loose trousers tucked into long 
boots, and a tunic belted at the waist, threw 
open our door with startling swiftness. He stood 
still for a moment, observing us intently ; then 
consulted a piece of paper he held in his hand, 
looked once more keenly at me, then turned and 
said a few words to a similarly dressed man be- 
hind him, who had been hidden from us by the 
door of the compartment, but who now came 
forward and assisted in the scrutiny. 

Under the circumstances we could not but re- 
gard their behavior as an act of impertinence, for 
each of us bore a document technically known as 



50 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

" special passport," issued by our government 
only to accredited agents and such as are partic- 
ularly vouched for. This document was signed 
by the ex-Secretary of State James G. Blaine on 
March 4, 1892, and was a request "to permit [the 
bearer] to pass freely without let or molestation, 
and to extend to him all such friendly aid and pro- 
tection as would be extended to like citizens of for- 
eign governments resorting to the United States." 

I had also a second passport with me, which 
included my wife. That was, however, only the 
ordinary passport, which invoked not friendly aid 
and protection, but simply " lawful aid and pro- 
tection." 

As the bearded official continued his scrutiny, 
we sought to pretend indifference, and handed 
our tickets, which were accepted in a mechanical 
manner. The door was slammed, and we were 
once more alone. 

Neither of us relished the episode, for we were 
travelling on a legitimate errand, and had taken 
special pains to establish our identity in the 
proper quarters. The United States government 
had commissioned me to make a report upon the 
best means of protecting our sea -coast against 
the ravages of wind and waves, and my orders 
were to note particularly what had been done 
along the sandy shores of the Baltic, where the 
conditions suggest very strongly our shores of 
Long Island and New Jersey. 




THE THIRD SECTION AT WORK 



WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 53 

" What do you suppose that fellow wanted of 
us?" queried Remington. 

" A ruble," said I ; "and we've got the best of 
him ;" with which comprehensive answer I began 
to roll my jacket up for a pillow. 

" That won't do," said Remington, after a 
pause. " That fellow with the beard had more 
than a ruble's worth of scowl on him. He was 
comparing you with his paper. You've grown a 
beard since your last passport." 

" That's none of his business," I answered. 

To be sure, I had grown a beard during the 
winter, because I had torn a finger to pieces while 
experimenting with a cog-wheel. But I could 
not see why the police should care about that. 

" At any rate," continued Remington, with em- 
phasis, " that fellow with the beard is going to 
make us trouble. I feel it down in my bones. I 
don't mind being shot, but I do hate sitting still 
in prison. Good-night." 



II 

The train rumbled into Warsaw. Remington 
and I handed our valises to the porter of the 
hotel, but, instead of taking the omnibus or cab, 
slipped out through the crowd, and, with the aid 
of a map, strolled about the streets to take a look 
at the town before reporting at the hotel. 



54 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

In Paris I had made the acquaintance of a 
very intelligent Polish landed proprietor, and 
had promised to look him up. The address he 
had given me in Warsaw was that of a German 
chemist in a large drug-shop. I was to ask for 
Mr. X., and introduce myself — the rest I was to 
leave to him. 

This seemed an odd way of accomplishing a 
simple and innocent visit, but there was no other. 
We entered the drug-store; pretended to need a 
tooth-brush; asked casually for Mr. X.; he ap- 
peared from a back room ; I pretended to want 
something chemical, and when out of ear- shot, 
asked after my friend. The manner of Mr. X. 
immediately changed ; he took me into his back 
room, leaving Remington to inspect tooth-brush- 
es, and after satisfying himself that I was the 
party I pretended to be, said, anxiously, 

" Have you been to your hotel yet?" 

I said no. 

" That is right," said he, somewhat relieved. 
" Are you sure that no one has tracked you from 
the station to this door?" 

I told him how we had disposed of our lug- 
gage, how we had slipped through the crowd, 
and expressed the opinion that if any one had 
kept an eye on us during the railway journey, he 
certainly could not have followed us to his door 
without our knowledge. 

" You did well," he said, " but still you had 



WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 55 

better not call on Mr. Zerowski," for that was 
my friend's name. " You had better go to 
your hotel now, for if you stay longer away, 
it will excite suspicion. Say nothing while a 
servant is in the room. If you have any papers 
you don't wish read, carry them on your person. 
A police spy will come to your room five minutes 
after you have surrendered your passport. He 
will pretend to be an American, or at least to 
have lived in America and to love Americans. 
He will want to find out what you have done and 
what you propose doing, and will see that you 
are watched. While you are out he will see that 
your luggage is searched; you had better lock 
nothing up. Tell him you leave early to-morrow 
morning for St. Petersburg, and must have your 
passports back ; promise him a ruble, to have no 
mistake. Then drop in at the Cafe Tomboff at 
exactly 3.50, but do not act as though you looked 
for any one there. Zerowski will join you five 
minutes later, quite by accident, you understand. 
Good-bye." 

Ill 

Remington and I looked at each other du- 
biously as we left the chemist and sought our 
hotel. Neither of us relished the idea of attain- 
ing our object by indirect methods, although I 
was prepared to sacrifice something for the sake 



56 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

of exchanging news with my Polish friend Ze- 
rowski, who, by-the-way, makes it his business to 
know what is going on. 

" I don't care for Russia, anyway," said Rem- 
ington, finally, after we had spent some minutes 
debating the advisability of joining Zerowski at 
the Cafe Tomboff. " Let's go back to Germa- 
ny, Hungary, Turkey, Africa — anywhere out of 
this—" 

He did not finish his sentence, for at that point 
the door opened softly and swiftly to admit a 
sleek little bald-headed, black- coated, blinking 
man of about fifty years of age, who said, with a 
smirk, and in bad English, " I thought I heard 
you say ' Come in !' " 

We had not said " Come in," but did not dis- 
cuss that point. 

" You have just arrived from Berlin?" he 
said. 

" No, from America," said Remington. 
" But where did you stop last before reaching 
Warsaw?"" 

"Wherever the train stopped," said Reming- 
ton. 

He then tried to know where our next objec- 
tive was, whether we had friends in Warsaw, how 
long we should stop, and finally offered himself 
to us as guide, philosopher, and friend, on the 
strength of having lost his heart in America. 
We parried his questions, gave him to under- 




I THOUGHT I HEARD YOU SAY ' COME IN 



WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 59 

stand that we did not need him, expelled him 
finally from the room, and then strolled off to 
the Cafe Tomboff. 

The chemist was right; the spy was in our 
wake. We had scarcely seated ourselves at the 
Tomboff when the little blinking man entered 
the place, took his seat at a table in the corner, 
and engaged in earnest conversation with a guest 
who had been sipping a cup of coffee there. The 
subject of the conversation was obviously our- 
selves, to judge by the manner in which the sec- 
ond man's eyes worked in our direction. The 
blinking man soon disappeared, and the younger 
one was left to watch. 

Zerowski entered the outer door of the Tom- 
boff exactly five minutes after Remington and I 
had taken our seats. He stood a moment on the 
threshold, in the manner of a man undecided 
whether to loaf or go to work. His eyes rested 
on us, then on the spy, then wandered listlessly 
about the room. Finally, pretending to be very 
much bored, he sauntered down among the lit- 
tle tables, passed ours without a glance at me, 
went slowly to the farthest end of the establish- 
ment, appeared very much annoyed at not find- 
ing a table for himself alone, strolled back tow- 
ards us, asked politely if he might sit at our 
table, took his seat as a stranger, offered Rem- 
ington a cigarette, and said to me, in a whisper, 
as he bowed to Remington : 



60 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

"Consider that I've never seen you before; 
there is an agent of the secret service three 
tables from you." 

Zerowski is one of the many patriots in Poland 
who remain in their own country, bound by large 
estates which they cannot dispose of, and who pray 
morning and night for a cessation of the present 
barbarous government. Like most Poles with a 
liberal education, he has served a term in the 
Warsaw citadel, and is on the list of " suspects" 
who are to be arrested and deported at the first 
rumblings of revolution in Poland. 

" What is the news?" I asked. 

" Don't ask me," he said, " we are in Russia, in 
the Military Department of the Vistula." Then 
lowering his voice, he said, in French : " There 
will be soon another excursion to Siberia — a 
large one this time — students of the university 
here — you should stop to see it — in about seventy 
days, I think." 

Remington, whose senses have been quickened 
by mixing paints among the huts of Cheyennes 
and Apaches, gave me at this point a kick be- 
neath the table-cloth, and remarked, with empha- 
sis, that he did not relish the company of the 
sneak-agent, who by this time had brought his 
chair one table nearer. 

" I shall go from here to the theatre," said 
Zerowski ; " shall get three seats together ; shall 
send two by a safe messenger to your hotel ; they 



WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 63 

will be there in an hour ; meanwhile stroll about 
town, and let the hotel porter know where you 
are going, so as to disarm suspicion." 

The theatre was full ; but as neither Reming- 
ton nor I included Polish among our acquired 
accomplishments, we could not do justice to the 
performance. 

Zerowski came in, but took a seat far away 
from us, in spite of the fact that the seat next to 
me remained vacant. After the first act we met 
in the adjoining garden, and his first words were : 

" Thank God, the scoundrel has gone ! He 
saw that I took a seat far from you. He con- 
cludes that he can make nothing of us to-night. 
He has gone to write his report, or do some 
other dirty work." 

" But about the university?" I asked. 

" Not a word has appeared or can appear in 
any Russian paper ; not a word can pass the cen- 
sor that touches this matter. I have a ' discreet ' 
friend in the Warsaw faculty ; he has told me 
something, but it would mean dismissal or worse 
to him if the police knew that he had said a word 
about it. • 

"You must know," said Zerowski, " that the 
czar's government has undertaken to tear up by 
the roots every manifestation of life that does 
not spring from soil prepared by Russian priest 
or police. The little veneer of civilization you 
find in Russia is due to Poland in the first place, 



Q J THE UORDS Kl \NI> Of I Al: \M' I. \l .1 I 

and, "i mod< i n i mi. .. to ( rei many I am .« Pole 
i\i 5 i.miih h.i.i i njoj - d I he fi uits oi E urope 
an 1 l\ 'ii atlon hundn da oi j ears bi fore i^ ussi i 

I in. i;. .1 h.'in ,i w il.l. i n. ■ • ol pi.>\\ ling Cog ■>« 1 ■ 

i h< R ussian h.ii. •. us u i hi ii ii. i . grosslj in 
i. H, >i mi. ii. . i u.iiu . .m.i be( .ni..- w . i. in..- to 
.i. .. end to hia level He haa * onquered ua . he 
in . floggi d ua . he haa erased the name ol Po 
land from hia map M3 i hildren dare not speak 
theli in.» i ii.i i .mi" ii- . m\ wife dares not employ 
.i • ; .>\ . in. . . ol h. i .m\ n nation . mj \ erj sen anta 
must b< ' lected foi mi bj the Russian poli< e 
i he i ii haa i ul Poland ofl from all inten ourse 
wiiii l in , <)'. . .m.i forced hei to starve 01 pick up 
i he * i umba from hia table rhe Pole t an no 
i. Mi-, i get .i .1. . .in . .in. ation in hia o\r n ( ountr) . 
iii. Russian polh - control oui schools aa they do 
oui ii' w spap< ' ■ and I heii obje< I is t.> ha\ e -ill 
ih. profi ssiona in Poland filled onl} bj orthodox 
Russians 

r. oplt in i ngland .m.i Vmei l< .1 * annot mi 
derstand w hat this means, foi superfit lallj it 
•.. 1 ma .i light burden But look .»t it from the 
Polish side \ ou are a 5 oung man You w ish 
to bet ome an engineer, do< tor, la^ ) er, an 
architect anything oi that kind You must 
pass a series oi government examinations, 01 you 
\ annot begin to earn a Li\ ing > » oui examiners 
are Russians, and the) have orders to favoi all 
the 'Orthodox*' and place obstacles in the waj 



\\ ll\ \\ I Mil IT .1 V (.., 

,-i poll ■ ! iuppose, aftei passing all the pn 
liminary obstai lea, \ -mi get youi %o\ ernmi nt 11 
i . n .. . \ .-II find then that \ ou i an a< * omplish 
i \ . i\ i hing ii \ "ii are ol < he Greek ( Ihuri h, and 
next i" nothing Ii \ on an not tn Russia the 
go\ ei mn. ni pi i mi >i' • everj depai tment ol hu 

Ml. Ill .It I l\ ll V IMllll.ll Y) Ml. .II. .ll. I. gal, .l.llMIMI .1 I .1 

tive, teli graph, railw aj . i ngiw 1 1 Ing Vou i annot 
pi.i. . j .mm fingi ' "ii anything that doi • not de 
pi ii. i to i large extent upon go^ - rnmi nl fa\ oi 
\ . .i result \ ou find I hat at ever} step In \ out 
profi -i"M.ii i ourse \ ou an hi a\ llj handii appi d 
i»\ iii. t.n,.\\ i, dgi that you w 111 ne\ - 1 g< I i m 
plo) mi. mi . ... ept from I he vei ) few who ari to 
bold as to i mi|>i.'\ \ en In spite ol \ oui nat lonal 
disability. Poll • do still i am .< ii\ Ing, bul ll Is 
mainly by making thi ms< lves< < i pt tonally useful 
to § R u. .i.in ..ih. i.ii who has mon pal ronagi 
i inn mi. ih-. ii. . \ i. w .i.i\ . bi fori \ "ii arrived 
iii. Polish st udents at the Warsaw I University 
had been deeply out raged by I hi K ussian head 
..i i ii. i.i. nil v oi rathei . I should say I hal .i 
series "i out t'agi s brought on an i Kplosion. rhi 
R ussians, one and all, •! upid "< not , <« ■» 1 h ed 
diplomas at ( !omm< n( emi nl . w hile I hi Poll s, 
w hose i apa< Ity w as notoriously supi rior, were, 
almost to •• man, n ji cted I hi sham* li ■ po 
litii .ii bias was so appan nt thai all Warsaw 
w as ablazi . and om fim daj I In si udi nts lost 

| ..Ml I.. I .-I III. MM. I\ . ., .111.1 .;.l\ | III. Mil. . mOSt 

5 



66 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

obnoxious members of their faculty a sound 
pelting. Such a thing probably never could 
happen in America — " 

To which I was compelled to answer that I 
had known, " 'neath the elms of dear old Yale," 
of students smashing the window of a very un- 
popular tutor. 

" Bismarck used to pretend that the Poles were 
like the Irish — chronically rebellious. That 
is not true. There is no similarity between the 
two nations. England is giving Ireland the best 
government that unhappy country has ever had ; 
Russia is giving Poland the worst government it 
is possible to conceive of — worse even than what 
she gives her own orthodox subjects. England 
is raising the Irish to a higher level ; Russia is 
dragging us down into the mud." 

" What will the police do with the disorderly 
Polish students?" I asked. 

" Not so loud, if you please," said Zerowski, 
glancing about him. " There are spies at work 
now. They are being watched. The meshes 
are being drawn slowly and silently about them. 
Their letters are intercepted. They are being 
lulled into a false sense of security. By-and-by, 
in about three months, a raid will be made, and 
another transport to Siberia commence. . . ." 

Between the acts we met by accident Professor 
X., the Polish member of the faculty, to whom 
Zerowski introduced us. 




\ y& 



A GENDARME IN WARSAW 



WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 69 

" Ask him about the university row," whispered 
my friend to me. 

I did so, and Professor X. answered with osten- 
tatious emphasis : 

" University row! You surely must be think- 
ing of some other university ! The Warsaw Uni- 
versity never has any row of any kind ! Good- 
evening." 

Zerowski smiled sadly as the form of the pro- 
fessor disappeared in the crowd. 

" There goes," said he, " a product of Russian 
rule — the smooth liar. That is the man who told 
me the whole story. I introduced you only to 
give you a little object-lesson." 

As we parted that night, Zerowski said : " You 
will understand why it is better that I do not 
come to the station to see you off. You are 
being watched here, and you will not move in 
Russia without a police agent behind you." 



IV 



On the 6th of June Remington and I readied 
St. Petersburg, and after depositing our scant 
canoe kit at the hotel, hurried to the legation of 
the United States. 

The St. Petersburg cabs have wheels a trifle 
larger than that of a wheelbarrow, and hold about 
as much. Remington and I hugged each other 



70 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

hard to keep from " dripping out " over the sides 
as we jumped and bumped over the rough pave- 
ment of the vast and lonesome squares that seem 
specially designed for military purposes. The 
horse of the droschka is small but spry, and drags 
the clumsy little cab with extraordinary facility. 
Every other cab we met contained a man in uni- 
form. Germany seemed bad enough in this re- 
spect, but in St. Petersburg there seemed no 
choice between uniforms and rags. The driver, 
no doubt, likes the small droschka because it 
makes his horse look stronger, while the official, 
no doubt, loves it because it makes his propor- 
tions appear to advantage. The horse probably 
curses it as a clumsy weight, and sighs for a civil- 
ized carriage. 

A most distinguished-looking footman opened 
the door for us, in answer to our ring, and ushered 
us into a room full of costly adornment. The 
legations of Berlin, Paris, London, and Vienna 
paled in comparison with this princely suite, for 
from our seats we gazed in wonder upon room 
after room of corresponding luxury. 

Being but plain American travellers, and hav- 
ing been ushered into this apartment in answer 
to our desire to speak with our representative, 
we concluded that we were in the office of the 
United States, and that an extra appropriation 
had been made to defray the expense of this 
mission. But we were wrong. 



WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 



71 



There was no United States minister in St. 
Petersburg when we called, and the first secretary, 
who acted as charge, informed us that we were in 
his private residence, one room of which appeared 
especially reserved for office purposes. 

In other countries, particularly semi-civilized 
ones, the American seeking the protection or 
assistance of his minister is cheered by the sight 
of the American eagle over the legation door, 
possibly by a flag-staff from which the stars and 
stripes wave proudly on national holidays, pro- 
claiming to all the world that wherever the Ameri- 
can citizen travels he is sure of the support of his 
government so long as he obeys the laws of the 
place in which he is sojourning. But even if 
eagle and banner are absent, there is, in any 
event, a small brass plate affixed in some con- 
spicuous place, with the information that there is 
such a thing as a legation of the United States 
in the place. 

In St. Petersburg Remington and I looked in 
vain for some such cheering sign. There may 
have been one in Russian, but few American 
travellers speak that language. We stumbled 
about in a wretchedly homesick condition, ring- 
ing all the bells in the neighborhood, finding no 
one who could speak our language, and at length 
stumbling by accident upon the door of the mag- 
nificent gentleman who represents the govern- 
ment of Washington near the person of our 



72 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

friend the Czar of all the Russias. I had sent 
a letter on the first day of June, informing our 
charge in St. Petersburg that I bore a commis- 
sion from the United States government, that I 
bore also the " special passport " of the State De- 
partment, and in addition an official letter from 
the Secretary of State introducing me personally 
to our diplomatic agents abroad. 

Remington also bore the " special passport/ 5 
and I added in my letter that he and I were 
travelling together in order more completely to 
fulfil the wishes of our government. 

Mindful of the rapidity with which the average 
American diplomatist loses sight of his native 
land in the midst of courtly pomp, I took the oc- 
casion to remark that my companion was, in his 
line, the first artist of America, and desired per- 
mission to make sketches. 

My letter remarked also that we had, at con- 
siderable cost, brought with us from America 
each a cruising canoe, that we proposed sailing 
from St. Petersburg the whole length of the 
Baltic, making notes and sketches as we went 
along. 

Finally, I begged that our representative in 
St. Petersburg procure for me the necessary per- 
mission to make this cruise, or else, at least, pre- 
sent me to the official of whom I might make 
the request in person, and explain the innocent 
nature of our proposed trip. 



i'"\ v w 






M 
* - 



-Tt 




WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 75 

Knowing the delays of diplomacy in Eastern 
and semi-civilized countries, I suggested the 8th 
of June as the day of presentation, assuring the 
American charge that we should certainly be on 
hand before then. 

Remington and I had racked our brains to im- 
agine what further we could do to divest our 
mission of suspicious circumstance. We at last 
concluded to add a protocol to our document — 
to wit, we offered to pay the expenses of any 
one the Russian government should kindly send 
along with us as interpreter, guide, pilot, protec- 
tor, or spy. 

We knew that last year the United States gov- 
ernment had sent a special committee to Russia 
to report upon Jewish emigration, that this com- 
mittee had been snubbed, and that it left St. 
Petersburg in disgust, without having been rec- 
ognized by the proper department of state. 

Against this contingency we fancied we had 
protected ourselves completely, for we had sent 
our request a week beforehand. Our mission 
was not in the remotest degree connected with 
any political question whatsoever ; for what can 
be more innocent than the question of tree-plant- 
ing along the sea-shores? 

Besides, I had made a full statement of my 
purpose to the much-beloved ambassador of Rus- 
sia in Berlin, Count Schuvaloff. He is a man 
full of amiability, particularly kind to Americans, 



76 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

and incapable of guile. He could not have shown 
more interest in my project had he been my own 
father ; assured me that I would have a delight- 
ful trip, that I should be received with open 
arms, begged to know what he could do for me, 
even gave me a most cordial letter of introduc- 
tion to one of the greatest names in St. Peters- 
burg. 

What more could an American citizen desire, 
travelling in a country bound to us by so many 
friendly ties as Russia? Surely we did not ex- 
pect the American navy as escort ! The fleet of 
grain-ships which we sent for the starving peas- 
ants should have been a good substitute. 

The American charge calmly informed us at 
our first interview that he had not made any re- 
quest, written or oral, in our behalf. 

This was rather staggering, after giving him a 
week's start for this very purpose ! Remington 
looked ready for a fight. 

The charge explained that there was some 
difficulty in regard to diplomatic usage or prece- 
dent. 

I protested that the Russian minister in Wash- 
ington would find no difficulty in getting his re- 
quest before the Secretary of State, and I vent- 
ured to think that the United States minister in 
St. Petersburg was of quite as much importance 
as the Russian minister in Washington, and that 
if that was not the case, it was time people in 



WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 77 

America heard all about it. Our formal papers 
we had brought along, and asked him to read 
them. He did so, returned them, and remarked, 
in rather a tired manner, that they were lacking 
in diplomatic form. 

To this I rejoined that it was not for me to 
criticise the diplomatic form of my State Depart- 
ment ; that he might do that if he chose, but 
not through me. That our business in St. Peters- 
burg was exclusively to obtain such permission 
as should protect us in our coasting cruise. 

The charge answered very vaguely, and re- 
minded me that in the last year the Russian 
government had grown very jealous of foreigners 
who came to report upon things in Russia. To 
this I answered that China also disliked the for- 
eigner, but that I had found no difficulty in 
travelling there — even into the interior. 

We pressed upon him the fact that both of us 
were prepared to give the fullest guarantees re- 
garding the purely innocent nature of our cruise. 
Again we offered to defray the cost of a govern- 
ment escort. The charge smiled, and shook his 
head, and told us urbanely that we had come on 
a fool's errand. 

Finally, in the presence of our military attache 
and Remington, I said to him : " Here is a formal 
request. I ask you, on the strength of the gov- 
ernment papers I carry, to take me before the 
proper official of the Russian government ; I wish 



78 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

to be properly introduced to him ; I wish to pre- 
sent the credentials of the United States govern- 
ment ; I wish to explain the nature of our mission, 
and I wish to learn definitely from his lips wheth- 
er there can possibly be any obstacle thrown in 
our path." 

The charge looked from one to the other of 
us with a quizzical smile. Had we asked for a 
loan of the Russian czar, I should have expected 
such a smile. 

" It's quite impossible," was his terse answer. 
" It's contrary to all diplomatic precedent, don't 
you know !" 

What was to be done? Remington and I 
concluded to wait at least three days. If by 
that time the government gave us no answer, 
we should take our canoes to the first German 
port, cruise the Kaiser's coast first, and then re- 
turn to Russia, in case permission should have 
been finally accorded. 

The charge had at last condescended to prom- 
ise that he would write formally for the needed 
authority, and would do everything in his power 
to further our mission, etc. 

Russia is an expensive place to live in, partic- 
ularly the capital. The stranger is fair game for 
extortion, and we found that at the rate of out- 
lay current with us, we should soon be bankrupt. 
Socially our time passed agreeably enough, for 
we had letters to high and mighty functionaries, 



WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 



79 



who treated us most cordially, invited us to their 
country-seats, offered to do everything under 
heaven to enhance our happiness, except the 
one thing we particularly wished done. Princes, 
counts, colonels, ambassadors, adjutants, and 
aides-de-camp — these could furnish caviar, cham- 
pagne, and lordly hospitality, but not one of 
them dared move in a matter interesting to the 
Third Section — the secret police. 

The letters we received were of course opened 
by the police, and clumsily closed again. Rem- 
ington was one day driving in the suburbs, when 
he became aware that an official was following 
in a second droschka. The following droschka, 
however, passed his after a while, and Reming- 
ton noticed that its occupant spoke to a gen- 
darme on the road ahead. What he said, of 
course we do not know, but when Remington 
reached that point, the gendarme stopped his 
carriage, turned the horse's head back towards 
the city, and gave the driver some instructions 
in Russian that resulted in Remington finding 
himself an unwilling arrival back at the hotel, 
where I found him an hour later, pacing the floor 
like a caged lion, and venting his feelings in vig- 
orous English. 

We were used to being watched, but this was 
more than we had bargained for. 

On the fourth day we called at the legation at 
half-past ten in the forenoon. The impressive 



80 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

man-servant told us that his excellency the 
charge was in bed. We sent up word on a card 
that we called to know if he had any news for us. 
He sent down word by the splendid servant that 
he had no news ; did not know when he should 
have any ; that there was no use in our waiting 
for any. 

We returned a farewell message of thanks and 
compliments, and left. 

Two days before, we had interviewed the head 
of the customs, and had arranged to have our 
boats shipped by fast freight to Kovno, on the 
river Nietnen, supposing that forty-eight hours' 
start was quite enough. We had also told the 
hotel porter that we were to start to-day, and or- 
dered him to have our passports. He came to 
us with a drawn face, however ; said he was very 
sorry ; that he had been to the police station ; 
that there was some difficulty ; that he could 
not get them for us. 

" Now we are in for it," thought we. For, of 
course, without a passport we ceased to be Amer- 
icans, or even human beings ; we became merely 
the number of a police cell. 

Luckily for us, an official close to the person 
of the czar happened to call upon us at that mo- 
ment, and to him we explained our predicament. 
He left us for a moment, then returned, and as- 
sured us that there must be some mistake, that 
our passports would surely arrive. We chatted 




GENDARME, ST. PETERSBURG 



WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 83 

for a while, and, sure enough, as though by magic, 
the precious documents once more made their 
appearance, duly stamped and sealed. What 
potent spell our great friend had exercised we 
shall never know, but to us he was a friend in 
need, and we feel very grateful for his interces- 
sion. 



Between St. Petersburg and Kovno I stopped 
for a chat with a friend who knows the devious 
methods of Russian government pretty well. I 
told him my tale, and asked him what he made 
of it. 

" Nothing is simpler," said he. " You are po- 
litely requested to disappear from Russia at the 
shortest possible notice. You have been watched 
from beginning to end, and you may be watched 
at this moment. You might have waited a month 
in St. Petersburg, but you would never have got 
an answer to your request." 

" But," said I, " what if I had gone on without 
permission ?" 

" You would never know what had interfered 
with you. You would have been arrested at the 
first convenient place, and kept a week or so 
pending examination. What is most likely, 
however," said he, " some dark night your boats 
would have been smashed to kindling-wood; 



84 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

your stores, papers, and valuables would have 
been taken away, and yourselves turned adrift 
in a swamp." 

" But," said I, "you don't mean to say that a 
great government would permit such a thing?" 

" Oh, of course not ! Our great government 
would express the most profound regret at the 
accident; it would insist that the damage was 
done not by police agents, but by common 
thieves. In any event, you would be stopped 
before you got a hundred miles away from St. 
Petersburg, and, what is more, you would never 
be able to prove that the government had stopped 
you. 

"In Russia we are far ahead of Western Eu- 
rope. We have copied lynch-law from America, 
only here the government does the lynching. 
When a man is obnoxious, reads or writes or 
talks too much, we do not bother about courts 
and sheriffs. He disappears — that is all. When 
his friends come to inquire after him, the gov- 
ernment shrugs its shoulders, and knows noth- 
ing about it. He has been killed by robbers, 
perhaps, or he has committed suicide ! The gov- 
ernment cannot be held responsible for every 
traveller in Russia, of course ! 

" When a military attache is suspected of 
knowing too much about Russian affairs, his 
rooms are always broken into and ransacked. 
Not by the government — oh dear, no ! That 



WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 85 

would be shocking! It is always done by burg- 
lars. But, odd to say, these Russian burglars al- 
ways care particularly for papers and letters. 

" The German military attache has had his 
rooms broken into twice in this manner, and to 
prevent a third invasion he assured the chief of 
police that there was no use doing it any more, 
that he really never kept any important papers 
there. Since then he has not been troubled by 
official burglars." 

VI 

We were turned out upon the platform at 
Kovno at a quarter -past four of a misty and 
chilly morning, and, after wandering about this 
mysterious fortress-town until its only popula- 
tion, Jews and soldiers, filled the streets, we em- 
barked on a little steamboat bound down the 
Niemen. One of the passengers had answered 
my many questions in a friendly manner, and 
with him I had considerable talk about smug- 
glers, Jews, Cossacks, and things in general. 
Two men in uniform on the opposite side of 
the boat watched us with strange intentness, 
and for that reason I took pains that our Rus- 
sian friend should know that we were merely 
American tourists visiting his beautiful country 
in search of the picturesque. 

He disappeared soon after the boat started, 



86 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

and Remington curled himself up in the stern- 
sheets for the purpose of making studies of peas- 
ant costumes. He had not filled many pages 
before a hand was placed on my shoulder, and 
my Russian friend whispered in my ear, 

" If you don't both of you wish to spend the 
next few days in jail, make your friend stop his 
note-making." 

" But," I said, " he is not making notes ; he is 
a famous American artist, filling his sketch-book 
with bits of costume." 

And, to convince him of Remington's inno- 
cence, I showed him the book, full of memoran- 
dum sketches, which, however, seemed only to 
make our case worse. 

" This is not a matter for joking," said he, ear- 
nestly. "Two officers on board are watching 
you. Every day some one disappears on sus- 
picion of playing the spy. Only last week two 
women were locked up in the fortress overnight 
for having inadvertently strayed upon suspicious 
ground. They had come up the river with their 
husbands in a holiday party, and it was only with 
the greatest difficulty that they got clear again. 
The men who are watching you will make no 
distinction between sketching a peasant's nose 
and pacing off a fort front." 

We thanked him for his disinterested advice, 
Remington promptly packed his book, and our 
friend was soon once more in conversation with 




TWO OFFICERS ARE WATCHING YOU 



WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 



the sour-looking officials, apparently convincing 
them that we were not worth locking up, being 
merely a couple of crazy American artists, with 
very scant baggage. Had it not been for the 
intercession of that intelligent young Russian, 
there is little doubt in my mind that we should 
have been arrested at the next landing, robbed 
of all our sketches and notes, taken back to Kov- 
no, and kept in jail for a week or so, or until our 
charge in St. Petersburg had discovered a diplo- 
matic precedent which should justify him in de- 
manding our release. 

The two officers accompanied us to the last 
station in Russia, saw us safely off, and then re- 
turned to the nearest telegraph office to report 
that they had successfully driven two inquiring 
foreigners out of their country, and done it so 
neatly that no one could possibly take offence ; 
no one could accuse the czar's government of 
breaking any rule of international courtesy ! 

As I pen these lines, a letter from our charge 
in St. Petersburg reaches me confirming all that 
was told us there more than a month ago, namely, 
that the Russian government simply ignored his 
application, and by so doing gave him to under- 
stand that Remington should not make sketches 
in Russia, and that the United States deserved a 
snub for sending a commissioner to inquire about 
tree-planting on the sea-coasts. 

In other words, the Russian government treat- 



9° 



THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 



ed Remington and myself exactly as it treated 
the Emigration Commission sent by the United 
States government last year. When Japan de- 
clined to receive an American commissioner some 
forty years ago, we sent a fleet under Commo- 
dore Perry and insisted upon the forms of Eu- 
ropean courtesy. That was bullying a chival- 
rous but weak nation. To-day our diplomatic 
representatives in Russia are treated with the 
same contempt we have learned to expect in 
China, and latterly Chile. 



VII 

A word about our precious canoes. These had 
been fitted with folding centre-boards and drop- 
rudders ; had each two masts and sails ; had 
water-tight compartments fore and aft ; were ad- 
mirably adapted for a long cruise, and floated the 
burgee of the New York Canoe Club. Our idea 
was to haul them ashore at night, hoist a spe- 
cially fitted tent over each well, sleep on board, 
and, if necessary, cook our meals as well. Rem- 
ington had invented a water-proof holder for his 
sketching material, exactly fitted to the canoe, 
and in both boats everything was done that 
could possibly add to the success of our cruise 
from St. Petersburg to Berlin. 

C. B. Vaux, the author of the standard text- 




"O*^ 1 




A PAGE OF SKETCHES MADE ON THE NIEMEN 



book for canoeists, gave us his advice, so did the 
veteran cruiser C. J. Stevens, the secretary of the 
club. The Hamburg- American Steamship Com- 
pany triced the little squadron up under the 
boom over the after-deck, and allowed us this as 
a part of our personal baggage — a courtesy 
which we highly appreciated. From Hamburg 
the boats went to Ltibeck by rail, about one 
hour and a half ; thence by steamboat directly to 



92 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

St. Petersburg. The whole cost per boat be- 
tween Hamburg and St. Petersburg was 40 ru- 
bles, say $20, making about $10 apiece for the 
whole journey, including the transfers in Ham- 
burg, Liibeck, and St. Petersburg. In parenthe- 
sis I might add that the freight charges in Ger- 
many are so low upon canoes as to make land 
carriage quite as cheap as water. Last year, for 
instance, my canoe was taken from the coast of 
Holland to the head-waters of the Danube by 
fast freight for 12.90 marks, about $3.20, at which 
rate I should have shipped my canoe back from 
St. Petersburg to Kovno for about $4. 

Kovno is about fifty miles from the Prussian 
frontier, on a river called Niemen by the Rus- 
sians, and Memel by Germans. It was for us the 
only way of getting to Tilsit without touching the 
Baltic coast first ; and being on the direct railway 
line between St. Petersburg and Berlin, promised 
the greatest speed. The express trains make the 
distance in thirty hours, and the ordinary ones in 
forty-eight, the distance being about 550 miles. 
In order to have no possible mistake in regard to 
our retreat, we accepted the kind offices of a Rus- 
sian friend connected with the Foreign Office. 
He took us to the proper express agency, ex- 
plained in detail what was to be done, arranged 
that the boats should go off immediately by 
the fast freight travelling with the passenger 
train, had the bill made out for us, and stipu- 



WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 93 

lated that we should pay on receipt of the 
canoes. 

We gave those canoes forty-eight hours' start, 
and found on arrival in Kovno that there was no 
record of them whatever. The chief of the sta- 
tion said he understood no French or German, 
but by the assistance of an intelligent young 
woman who operated the telegraph, we came to 
an understanding. 

I showed him our passports and credentials, 
told him we expected our boats* here, and asked 
him if he would forward them on to us when 
they came. He said he would. 

We then asked if he wished payment on bill 
of lading. He said that was not necessary ; the 
boats would be sent right on across the frontier 
as soon as they arrived, and the money collected 
at the other end. 

I then left with the intelligent young telegraph 
operator our address, and money to defray cost 
of messages. She refused the money present we 
offered her — conclusive evidence that she was 
not Russian. 

All this happened on June ioth. Remington 
and I meanwhile went down the river by steam- 
er; made a few excursions to kill time ; finally lo- 
cated ourselves at Trakehnen, about ten miles 
from the Russian frontier, only sixty miles from 
Kovno, and waited patiently for our canoes. 

On June nth came a Russian telegram which 



94 



THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 



to us was a muddle : " If wooden boats must 
pay in Kovno, if metal can be paid in Trakeh- 
nen." 

A high German official, whose guests we were, 
happened to be an intimate personal friend of 
the German consul in Kovno, and therefore, to 
simplify the whole matter, he kindly telegraphed 
him to pay all charges, and do everything need- 
ful to hurry the boats on. We certainly thought 
that this would be guarantee enough for the Rus- 
sian police. 

On June 13th, when we expected to be far 
away in our boats down the Pregel, came another 
Kovno cable saying that 92 rubles must be paid 
before the railway chief would let the boats 
start. Of course we cabled back that money 
was no object, that the German consul was re- 
sponsible, and that we wanted the boats very 
badly. 

We waited another twenty-four hours, and then 
came another vexatious cable — that Kovno would 
not forward the boats until they had received the 
bill of lading. We were now indignant, because 
we had offered the bill of lading once before, and 
it had been declined; and, besides, the German 
consul surely was guarantee enough that we were 
not tramps. At last, on the 16th, came a cable 
from the German consul saying that the bill of 
lading had come, and that the charges against us 
amounted to 100 rubles, or 300 marks, say $70, 



WHY WE LEFT RUSSIA 

or about double what they should h. 
We cabled back to pay up and send the be 

We had long ago made up our minds that 
Russians in Kovno were doing their best to spo. 
our canoe cruise by obstructions of the most un- 
necessary kind. 

At last, after an infinite amount of worry and 
needless expense, the canoes reached Stettin, on 
the Baltic, on the 2d of July, having been on the 
way since the 8th of June. 

At Kovno the police were curious to know 
what was in the boat of Remington, so they took 
a hammer and smashed a hole through the beau- 
tiful mahogany deck, in spite of the fact that the 
hatches were on purpose left unlocked. 

Remington waited about Europe for a whole 
month, hoping from day to day that our diplo- 
matic representative in St. Petersburg would se- 
cure, at least for him, the necessary police per- 
mit to make sketches.* He has gone home now, 
and left me to write the net results of this mem- 
orable railway canoe cruise — a wasted month, an 
empty pocket, a smashed canoe. 

* It is proper here to say that after a delay of two months, 
and when it was no longer of use, the formal permit was accorded 
to both the author and artist by the Russian authorities. 

7 



THE RUSSIAN AND HIS JEW 



RUSSIA has more 
than a third of all 
the Jews in the world, 
and she is doing her 
best to reduce this num- 
ber. Official statistics 
are not quite reliable on 
this subject, but it is 
assumed by the best-in- 
formed that Russia must 
have close on to 3,000,- 
000 of the Hebrew race. 
The United States and 
England are shocked by 
the measures which the 
czar is taking against 
these people, and charge 
him with reviving relig- 
ious persecution. The 
czar replies to this by 
pointing out that the 
United States deliber- 
ately closed its doors against emigration from 
China, whose subjects were represented in Ameri- 




THE RUSSIAN AND HIS JEW 99 

ca to the extent of only about 100,000 souls, 
mostly upon the Pacific coast. In this matter, 
moreover, the czar moves in harmony with the 
overwhelming majority of his people, high and 
low ; and were his people to-morrow to proclaim 
a republic, one of the few laws which it would 
not repeal would be that which excludes the 
Jew from Holy Russia. The Russian knows 
his Jew better than we know him, and is there- 
fore better qualified to legislate on the sub- 
ject. 

The general outburst of indignation which 
greeted the anti- Jewish legislation of Russia 
since the accession of the present czar may be 
accounted for in many ways. The newspapers 
and banks of Europe are largely in Jewish hands, 
and this power was of course quickly evoked to 
create public sympathy for their persecuted co- 
religionists. The popular sentiment was, how- 
ever, most intelligent and most effective in the 
countries immediately bordering upon Russia, 
whose people wasted little time in theorizing on 
the rights of man or the beauties of tolerance, 
but organized with a view of protecting them- 
selves against an influx of unwelcome immi- 
grants. Castle Garden is not the only point to 
which the Jew of Russia has fled for comfort. 
He is equally keen in his desire to find a home 
in western Europe, where he can live in towns, 
pursue his life as broker, and not be too far 



IOO THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

away from the headquarters of his religious in- 
spiration. America, England, France, Spain, It- 
aly, Holland, Sweden, Norway — these countries 
have few Jews, comparatively speaking, and they 
are pretty well distributed. The stranger walk- 
ing down Broadway, guided by the signs over 
the shops of jobbers and importers, might con- 
clude that the Jews own New York, yet what we 
have is a mere nothing to what one country of 
Russia alone — Poland — has, whose Jewish pop- 
ulation, according to the last census, was about 
800,000. In England, Jews are met in every walk 
of life — in the army, the diplomatic service, the 
cabinet, the House of Lords, and amongst the 
boon companions of England's future king. As 
with us, they have cast off every distinguishing 
badge of their race, and it is frequently only by 
accident that we learn the nature of their relig- 
ious creed. In Russia, however, it is totally dif- 
ferent. There the Jew is as distinct a type as is 
with us the negro or the Chinaman. You can 
distinguish him as far as you can see, not merely 
by the face and form, so graphically drawn by 
Mr. Pennell in his work The Jew at Home, but 
in certain peculiarities of dress, to which he clings 
as pertinaciously as does the Apache to his blank- 
et or the Mexican to his sombrero. The Jew of 
Kovno, Warsaw, Kiev, and wherever else I have 
run across him in Russia, wears a curious curl 
that hangs down in front of each ear, sometimes 



THE RUSSIAN AND HIS JEW IOI 

to his chin. His cap of black alpaca or cloth sits 
far back on his head, close to his ears, with a visor 
as large as those once fashionable amongst our 
brakemen and conductors. His coat of black 
cloth or alpaca is modelled after that in which 
Dundreary is usually portrayed, reaching down 
to his ankles, and assisting to give him the long, 
lean, hungry look of the Shylock type. On his 
feet are boots worn outside of his trousers, in one 
hand an umbrella, in the other a valise ; for the 
Jew in Russia is usually moving from place to 
place on business, unless he is so poor as to be 
forced into menial occupation. 

A Russian who is not a Jew- hater by any 
means, but a thoroughly practical man of affairs, 
told me that next to the Jew's love of money 
was his devotion to the Talmud and its expound- 
ers. Strange as it may seem to us, who think of 
the Jew as wandering into all the corners of the 
world, guided solely by the desire of making 
mo'ney, we find that, on the contrary, he is fast- 
ened to Russia by the holiest of ties, that he 
wears his peculiar dress as proudly as a High- 
lander does his kilt, and that he does every- 
thing in his power to remain at home and 
discourage others from leaving. To draw the 
orthodox Jew educated in the school of the 
Talmud, away from the centre of his religious 
education, if not inspiration, is to him a serious 
matter. 



102 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

We propose to place before the inquiring read- 
er a short sketch of the manner in which the Jew 
is regarded to-day by those who dread his west- 
ward migration, and to bring together some of 
the reasons put forward by those who are so il- 
liberal as to dislike his company. Russia has lim- 
ited the territory in which Jews are allowed to 
live to a narrow strip, beginning in the Baltic 
provinces near Riga, and ending at the Black Sea, 
following, roughly, the western frontier of the em- 
pire, along the borders of Prussia, Austria, Hun- 
gary, and Roumania. These four countries — or 
rather three, if we regard Austria and Hungary 
as one — know more of the Jews by actual contact 
than any other people ; for, according to the last 
census on the subject, there were in Austro-Hun- 
gary 1,643,708; German Empire, 567,884; Rou- 
mania, 400,000. 

The same census gave for Great Britain and 
Ireland only 46,000 Jews; France, 49,439; Nor- 
way, only 34 ; Spain, 402 — in fact, as compared 
with Russia's neighbors, the number of Jews in 
other countries is hardly worth mentioning. 

The Chinese question in America was settled 
with reference purely to the Chinaman as he was 
known in California, and did not take into con- 
sideration the best class of Chinese in their own 
country. The Russian regards the Jew from his 
standpoint as it affects himself personally, and 
not from the standpoint of an Englishman or an 



THE RUSSIAN AND HIS JEW 103 

American, who has in view Jews of a nobler type. 
The Jew of Russia shades off into the Polish Jew, 
then into the German Jew, and it is a mixture of 
these two that is now besieging Castle Garden 
for American citizenship. How many Jews emi- 
grate from Russia every year is not known, for 
large numbers smuggle themselves over the fron- 
tier, and are most difficult to identify, because 
of the similarity in feature and dress of all the 
Chosen People along this Jewish strip. When I 
was in Kovno I came in contact with a Jew who 
told me that his whole business in life was smug- 
gling his co-religionists out of the country at a 
fixed price per head. 

The present alleged persecution of the Jews in 
Russia consists not so much in the making of 
offensive regulations against them as in enforcing 
laws of long standing, which the Jews have evaded 
by the assistance of the police, and of course by 
heavy bribes. The law has distinctly prohibited 
Jews in general from settling in Russia proper, 
exception being made only in certain cases, cov- 
ering artists, scholars, physicians, and specially 
privileged merchants. But so clever were the 
Jews in manipulating the officials, or, perhaps it 
is equally true to say, so greedy were the officials 
for an addition to their scanty salary, that in all 
the "towns of Russia proper Jews had notorious- 
ly congregated who were theoretically outlaws. 
Moscow and St. Petersburg, for instance, had each 



104 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

as many as 40,000 contrabands of this description. 
The Jews must have been a source of great profit 
to the officials, or they would not have been so 
long tolerated ; and, on the other hand, there 
must have been large opportunities for making 
money, or this race would not have exposed it- 
self to so many dangers and sacrifices by placing 
itself in a position to be periodically raided by 
the police. That the Jews are now being forced 
to conform to the law of Russia is an indication 
not merely that the government has awakened 
to a sense of its legal duties, but that the finan- 
cial burdens laid upon the Jews in Russia are 
greater than they are willing to bear ; in other 
words, they are too poor to purchase the immu- 
nity of former years. 

" Why do you hate the Jew ?" I one day asked 
my Russian friend. 

" Because," said he, " the Jew brings nothing 
into the country, he takes all he can out of it, 
and while he is here he makes the peasant his 
slave, and lives only for the sake of squeezing 
money out of everything." 

This was a strong statement, but he went on 
to amplify it by a variety of illustrations. 

After the Polish insurrection of 1863, the Rus- 
sian government set to work energetically to rus- 
sify that country, and particularly Lithuania. 
The principal means they employed, aside from 
actively persecuting the heterodox in religion 



THE RUSSIAN AND HTS JEW 107 

and politics, was to colonize large numbers of 
peasants from the interior of Russia upon farms 
which had been confiscated. Agricultural imple- 
ments were furnished to these peasants, and 
everything was done to start them well, so as to 
form a nucleus of Russian life in the midst of the 
disloyal provinces. Twenty years have passed 
since this great russifying measure was put into 
force, and what is the result ? 

If, as a traveller, you come into a Russian vil- 
lage, it is dirtier, if possible, than those of the 
neighboring Lithuanians and Poles. You ask 
for horses to continue your journey, and are 
quickly supplied by these Russians; the price is 
fixed, and you are about to pay it to the Russian 
who brings your carriage to the door. He, how- 
ever, refuses to take it, and begs that you will 
pay the money not to him, but to the proprietor 
of the tavern. You ask why. He answers that 
he is not allowed to take any money, that the 
horses he has brought belong to the Jew. You 
begin to inquire, and you find that the Jew not 
only owns the tavern, but trades in all the arti- 
cles which the peasants have to buy. You learn 
also that the Jew is creditor to nearly every peas- 
ant for miles around, and has a lien upon every- 
thing which that peasant may grow upon his 
land. You find that the peasant cultivates his 
land not for himself, but for the Jew, and that all 
his reward is the privilege of bare existence. 



108 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

There are many patriotic and humane Russians 
who have given it to me as their deliberate opin- 
ion that the Russian peasant would be better off 
to-day had he never been emancipated. He is 
dreamy, good-natured, unpractical, and very ig- 
norant. When he is .hard pressed for money, it 
is only too easy for him to accept the loan which 
the accommodating tavern-keeper offers him, 
particularly if he has one or two glasses of vodka 
inside of him. Like a child, he thinks little of 
the ultimate consequences and much of the pres- 
ent enjoyment. He signs the paper which is 
placed before him, and believes, of course, that 
he will easily pay off his debt with the next har- 
vest, particularly as the Jew promises to be most 
accommodating, and not press for money pay- 
ment. He sends, of course, the produce of his 
farm to the Jew, who acts as broker for him, and 
reserves his commission, and what he is pleased 
to consider the interest on his money ; and by 
some mysterious method of calculation the peas- 
ant is always the debtor, and the Jew always 
happy to accommodate him still further on the 
same terms. 

As my Russian friend explained the situation, 
it reminded me forcibly of several statements of 
the same kind made to me in Georgia and Ala- 
bama a few years ago, where I visited some 
friends, who knew the condition of their com- 
munities very well, and were in no sense Jew- 



THE RUSSIAN AND HIS JEW IOp 

haters. There I was told that the freedom which 
the Northern States had purchased for the negro 
at the cost of so much blood and treasure had 
been since sold to the Jew. The same Jews who 
had learned to play upon human nature by in- 
tercourse with emancipated serfs found in the 
Southern States exactly the material best suited 
for their purposes. 

The Jew opens a general country store, and 
bends all his energies towards making himself 
agreeable to the negroes by letting them have 
whatever they choose without paying for it. In 
this manner an account soon' runs up, in regard 
to which the negro is rarely prudent enough to 
keep an exact tally. When it has reached a 
proper figure, the Jew presses for payment, and 
of course the negro has no money. But the Jew 
assures the negro that nothing is further from his 
purpose than to do anything that might seem 
greedy. He waives the question of money en- 
tirely, and asks only that the negro pay him in 
cotton, or perhaps by handing over a mule or a 
cow, and by promising to continue trading at his 
store. This seems very magnanimous to the 
negro, and he cheerfully signs away future crops, 
to say nothing of the very farm he is working. 
Thus the negro works from year to year, always 
tied to the soil by the debt he owes the Jew, and 
as little capable of independent action as he or 
his ancestors ever were before 1863. 



IIO THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

In the Southern States, as in Russia, the lib- 
eral stranger naturally asks, " Why do not the 
peasants themselves, or the negroes, organize 
their own shops, and thus protect themselves 
against extortion and practical slavery?" It is a 
question easily asked, but the actual fact is that 
they do not, and that in both Russia and the 
United States blacks and peasants are bound to 
the soil by a slavery that is more galling than 
that they were formerly subjected to, because 
they are mocked with the title of free men. 

It was not until after the emancipation of the 
serfs, in 1861, that the Jew question began to 
take on serious proportions ; for up to that time 
the peasant had, in his landlord, a protector who 
was able to shield him from the consequences of 
his improvidence. After the emancipation, how- 
ever, the gulf between peasant and proprietor be- 
came as wide as that which separated the black 
from his former master; and between these two 
classes there entered an army of Jews, who alone 
have profited by the edict of 1861. The peasants 
became easy victims, owing to their improvi- 
dence and love of drink ; but the proprietors 
soon found that they could accomplish nothing 
without the assistance of the money-lender, and, 
above all, the only man who could control the la- 
bor market. Jews were, to be sure, not allowed to 
acquire real estate, but in the western provinces 
they took charge of landed property as agents 



THE RUSSIAN AND HIS JEW 1 13 

in such a manner that they had all the substan- 
tial benefits of ownership with none of the draw- 
backs. All the supplies for the estate were 
bought of themselves and charged to the un- 
lucky proprietor ; by their hold upon the peas- 
ants they were able to enforce labor at nominal 
rates, and nothing prevented them from exhaust- 
ing the soil as rapidly as possible, cutting down 
all the timber, and when they had squeezed the 
last kopeck out of the property, moving off to 
some other estate and commencing the same 
process over again. It is to the multiplicity of 
such cases that we must refer some of the pres- 
ent distress in Russia, although, of course, many 
other reasons co-operate. I am informed on 
good authority that, in spite of laws to the con- 
trary, a very large proportion of the land within 
the pale is practically in Jewish hands, to say 
nothing of the peasants who work upon it. To 
how great an extent this is the case is as difficult 
to find out as to give the exact number of Jews 
in Russia, for they have a direct interest in de- 
ceiving the government in regard to both of 
these matters, and have, so far, succeeded very 
well. 

A witty German once said, sneeringly, of the 
Russians, that "every nation is afflicted with the 
sort of Jew best suited to its condition ;" but if 
this is true, it is the most damning verdict upon 
the Poles, whose Jews appear to be upon the 



114 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

lowest level of human existence which it has been 
my fortune to meet with. This aphorism might 
be paraphrased by saying that each country has 
the Chinaman best suited for it, and that there- 
fore California should have been content with her 
contingent from the Flowery Kingdom. 

The public sentiment of Europe — at least, the 
eastern portion of it — might have been measured 
in the Berlin conference after the Russo-Turkish 
war, when Lord Beaconsfield made his notable 
effort in favor of the Jews. His proposals did 
not fall upon sympathetic ears, and the utmost 
he accomplished was to cause the powers to 
bully Roumania into a formal recognition of the 
Jews as equal in citizenship with the rest of the 
people. But even in Roumania the law is almost 
a dead letter by reason of a series of regulations 
subsequently passed. The Roumanian to-day 
dreads an increase of his Jewish population al- 
most as much as an invasion of Russian troops, 
and if the papers of his country cry out against 
Russian intolerance, it is not because he sympa- 
thizes with the Jews, but because he fears lest 
further persecution in Russia will make it more 
difficult for him to keep them out of Roumania. 

Germany and Austria can look on with some- 
thing like equanimity while isolated Jews filter 
across the frontiers and merge into the rest of 
the population. They still maintain a pose of 
tolerance to all creeds, but it would be hazard- 



THE RUSSIAN AND HIS JEW - 115 

ous to say how long this attitude can be safely 
maintained. Russia has not yet given the signal, 
but it is not beyond the realm of probability to 
imagine religious fanaticism so harmonizing with 
popular hatred as to produce a law not simply 
confining the Jews to Russian provinces on the 
western frontier, but actually expelling them by 
thousands and hundreds of thousands out of the 
country. Could Germany and Austria look with 
equanimity upon such an immigration into their 
already crowded countries? Or, aside from gov- 
ernmental action, can we suppose that the people 
of these countries would endure such a Jewish 
movement with any more kindliness than was 
manifested in San Francisco towards the cargoes 
of Chinamen ? Germany and Austria know that 
Russia has an almost inexhaustible supply of this 
undesirable population, all living along a single 
strip of territory, and united by centuries of com- 
mon language, traditions, and family ties to such 
a degree as to make them a state within a state, 
as much so as the Mormon Church. Up to with- 
in recent years the Jewish communities have been 
allowed to govern themselves according to their 
own peculiar laws and customs, much as the Chi- 
nese manage their own affairs in Chinatown. 
These peculiar privileges are now abolished, but 
custom and tradition amongst them, notably their 
religious preceptors, have so complete an ascen- 
dency over them that the effect of the Russian 



lib THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

law upon them does not go far beyond the pres- 
ence of the policeman. 

My Russian friend, who had given considerable 
attention to the history of the Jews, as well as to 
their present condition in Russia, called my at- 
tention to the great difference between the Jew 
of Russia — that is to say, the Jew who calls into 
existence the anti-Semitic movement in Germany 
— and his co-religionist who was driven out of 
Spain about the time that Columbus discovered 
America. The Jews of Spain, whom Ferdinand 
and Isabella expelled from the country, stood 
upon a relatively high plane of intellectual as 
well as material development. In that age of 
monkish superstition the Jews stood forth pre- 
eminent as masters in many sciences. They had 
enjoyed successive generations of contact with 
highly refined people, had absorbed the artistic 
spirit, which no one could escape who lived in 
the Spain of that time. The short-sighted fanati- 
cism which drove them out into the world called 
forth much sympathy for them; and the fame of 
their learning, particularly in the natural sciences, 
did much to atone for the prejudice against their 
money -making propensities. Then, too, these 
Spanish refugees did not all move to one coun- 
try, nor did they come from a land that might 
furnish additional supplies in the future. The 
Jews of 1492 scattered themselves broadcast into 
nearly every country of western Europe, notably 



THE RUSSIAN AND HIS JEW 117 

Italy, England, Holland, South Germany, and 
France. The Popes of Rome extended their 
protection to them, and, in spite of occasional 
outbursts of popular ill-will, they prospered, and 
with their prosperity gradually took on the color 
of the society in which they moved, and lost cor- 
respondingly the peculiar characteristics which 
are so conspicuous in the Russian Jew. The 
Jews of four hundred years ago, who wandered 
in distress to Antwerp, London, Amsterdam, Na- 
ples, Venice, Marseilles, Genoa, Rome, brought 
to all these cities talents which the people there 
knew how to appreciate. Their appearance there 
might almost be compared to that of the clever 
artisans and manufacturers who came to England 
and Prussia after the Revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes — in the sense that the best people of the 
country regarded them as a source of economic 
strength. But the Jew who to-day comes from 
the Russian border to Berlin or Buda-Pesth rep- 
resents in no sense a man of learning, or even 
the master of an art whose acquisition is envied 
by the people amongst whom he settles. He rep- 
resents to them unscrupulous greed for money, 
a marvellous facility in deception — a man whose 
object in life seems to be to subordinate every 
consideration to that of material success. All 
England has only about as many Jews as the 
capital of Prussia alone, and the Jew question as 
it appears to the German is intensified by the re- 



Il8 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

flection that the Jew who comes to him from the 
East is not only a creature repugnant to him in- 
dividually, but who has left behind him so vast 
a number of his co-religionists that if they once 
start upon an invasion of western Europe they 
will soon be in a position to dictate terms in ev- 
ery Christian capital. The Spanish Jew and the 
Russian Jew are, of course, allied, if we go back 
far enough; but no Russian or German finds 
any comfort in reflecting upon the excellence of 
the Jews in the days of Columbus. His appre- 
hension springs entirely from observing the Jew 
of to-day. 

Said my friend to me : " Wherever the Jew has 
control of the press — and that is saying a good 
deal — you find that he strenuously preaches tol- 
erance, in order that he may profit by it. To 
read the articles by Jews in newspapers and re- 
views, one would suppose that the only truly lib- 
eral spirits to-day were the members of syna- 
gogues. If you will take my word for it — and I 
think I know what I am talking about — there is 
no church domination that can be more narrow 
and relentless than that which governs the four 
or five millions of Jews who occupy both sides of 
the Russian frontier between the Baltic and the 
Black Sea." 

In 1877 a Jewess named Ida Katzhandel chose 
to turn Roman Catholic and marry a Pole. The 
pair lived happily for about a year, when one fine 



THE RUSSIAN AND HIS JEW 121 

day the relations of Ida turned up while the hus- 
band was away, took her from the house, and 
drowned her in the river Wieprz — a stream which 
runs into the Vistula near Ivan-Gorod. The 
guilty ones had taken, of course, every precau- 
tion against discovery ; but the police managed, 
somehow or other, to trace the crime home, and 
the murderers were brought to trial in Lublin 
about three years after the murder. Two of 
them were convicted ; one was sentenced to two 
years' penal servitude, the other to two years 
confinement ; with regard to the remainder the 
evidence was so faulty that they had to be set 
free, although there was no doubt in the minds 
of the people in the neighborhood as to who had 
committed this outrage. But stranger than the 
crime was the fact that during the days of this 
trial the space about the court-house was filled 
with violent Jews, who praised the murderers as 
martyrs to their religion, and who greeted those 
who had been released as men to whom every 
honor was due. 

My Russian friend assured me that the picture 
of brutal fanaticism furnished by this one instance 
is typical of the great mass of Jews whom the 
German has in mind, as well as the Russian, when 
he discusses the Jew question. One can scarcely 
conceive of grosser religious intolerance than this 
in Spain of 1492 or Mexico of 1892. It is a pict- 
ure for which, I confess, I was little prepared, and 



122 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

it is obvious that the Jew of Lublin has but a dis- 
tant blood -relation with those who produced a 
philosopher like Spinoza. 

Russians have told me that it is almost impos- 
sible to catch the Jews for military service, owing 
to the facilities they enjoy of changing their dom- 
icile. The railways have been in Russia the great- 
est possible blessing to the Jews, in that they give 
them the means of speedily moving from place to 
place, transacting business in parts of the coun- 
try where they are forbidden, and disappearing 
with their profits to a place of safety before the 
government has become aware of what has hap- 
pened. Forged passports are readily procured, 
and with these they move from point to point, 
sleeping on the train, and transacting their busi- 
ness through the day. They avoid as much as 
possible spending any time in a town where they 
might be called to account by the police. When 
the recruiting authorities come to hunt up their 
Jews for the military service which all Russians 
have to render, they are usually away from home, 
or have been enrolled in some other town or vil- 
lage. If they are finally caught and brought be- 
fore the military authorities, they usually have 
papers certifying that they are either too young 
or too old for the service ; in fact, the military 
authorities regard it now as pretty well proved 
that of the three million Jews in the Russian 
Empire, hardly one is of military age. In this 



THE RUSSIAN AND HIS JEW 1 23 

matter of deceiving the War Office the Jews are 
much assisted by their local Jewish officials, 
whose duty it is to register births and grant cer- 
tificates of this kind ; but the matter at last went 
to such ridiculous lengths that the Russians have 
gone to the other extreme, and now attach no 
importance whatever to any document which the 
Jew may produce, but draw their own conclusions 
by looking at him, and pronounce him of military 
age or not according to his appearance or their in- 
clinations. I ventured to point out to my friend 
that there was little inducement for the Jew to 
enter the army, where he was not apt to be treat- 
ed with much consideration, but my friend replied 
that the behavior of the Jew in regard to his mil- 
itary service was analogous to his behavior in re- 
gard to all his obligations to the state and every 
community except his own. 

"I do not know how it is with you in Amer- 
ica," said he, "but with us, whenever you see a 
Jew who is rich, you may be pretty sure that he 
has either contracted to furnish food or clothing 
for the army, or else has been several times bank- 
rupt. You would have great difficulty in discov- 
ering a rich Jew who has not been bankrupt at 
least once." 

The attitude of Germans towards Jews is nec- 
essarily most intimately connected with the 
treatment of them by the czar, which illustrates, 
what I believe to be the fact, that the Germans 



124 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

who discuss this question without religious bit- 
terness are prepared to treat fairly the Jews now 
in Germany, but dread the political consequences 
of a further immigration from the east. It is 
notable that the anti-Semitic movement sprang 
into existence in Germany at the same time that 
Alexander III. became czar, and has been grow- 
ing in proportion as that sovereign has shown a 
disposition to rid himself of them at the expense 
of his western neighbors. Fair-minded Germans 
have over and over again repudiated the idea 
that they could object to Jews, or any one else, 
on religious grounds, and protested that in ap- 
proaching this question they did so strictly as 
practical politicians dealing with a political state 
of things gravely affecting the future of their 
country's development. They do not dread a 
Jewish invasion from the west, for that Jew is 
no longer the Jew of Poland, but the Jew who 
has conformed in many ways to the life and 
thought of his neighbors in Holland, Belgium, 
England, and France. The Jew question in Ger- 
many could be easily settled if England would 
agree to accept them first after they left Poland, 
and send them on to Germany only after they 
had spent a generation on her soil, far from the 
influences that oppress them in Warsaw and 
Kovno. 

That the Jew question in Germany has refer- 
ence to fears for the future rather than anxiety 



QaJL. . <*"■ 




THE RUSSIAN AND HIS JEW 127 

in regard to the present is illustrated to some 
extent by the fact that in Germany all religious 
denominations are treated as equal before the 
law, and if a Jew in Germany complains that his 
position in society is not as desirable as he could 
wish, it is a complaint that might just as well be 
made in America, or even in England. The Ger- 
man Jew complains that his co-religionists are 
not often selected for military commands, and 
argues that he is therefore not equal before the 
law. The Jew is not often found as an officer 
in the German army simply because the majority 
of German officers do not desire to serve with 
him. If the officers of a Prussian regiment de- 
sired a Jew to become one of their number, there 
is no law in the country that would stand in 
the way ; for in this matter of becoming an offi- 
cer the Jew stands on a footing as good as and 
no better than a Christian. Every candidate for 
epaulets in the German army submits his name 
to the regiment in which he desires to serve, and 
has to be elected into the regiment, much as 
though he were applying for admission into a 
rowing club, or any other semi -social organiza- 
tion. The present German custom is an excel- 
lent one, and the Jews who complain against it 
only advertise the fact that they have not yet 
reached a point where their fellow-countrymen 
regard them as the most desirable leaders of 
troops. 



128 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

Germany, with a population less than fifty 
millions, has, according to the census of 1890, 
567,884 Jews, a trifle over one per cent, of the 
population, and a larger number than the whole 
of her standing army. Of this number Prussia 
alone has 372,058, yet nowhere have the Jews 
more enlightened champions than amongst Ger- 
mans who are not even of the Jewish faith, nota- 
bly the editors of such papers as the Nation and 
the Ffeisinnige, both of whom are active members 
of the German Parliament. These men and the 
party they represent scout the idea that so small 
a proportion of the whole population can possi- 
bly become a danger, and they loudly urge the 
government to appoint Jews to the most im- 
portant military and judicial posts — in other 
words, to treat a Jew not as an alien, but as a 
thorough German. But these statesmen have 
not yet convinced the great mass of the people 
that the Jew, by becoming a citizen of the Ger- 
man Empire, necessarily becomes a German other 
than in name and speech. Prussia, in 1850, made 
her citizenship equal to all, irrespective of relig- 
ious denomination, and has treated the Jew sub- 
stantially as the Christian, at least before the 
law, and the Imperial Constitution of 1871 was 
framed in the same spirit of toleration. 

German politicians who to-day champion the 
cause of the Jews tell us that during the wars of 
liberation against Napoleon I. five and a half per 



THE RUSSIAN AND HIS JEW 1 29 

cent, of the Jews who were of the military age en- 
tered the Prussian army as volunteers, and that 
one of the first soldiers to earn the Iron Cross 
in those wars was a Jew. From that day to this 
the Jews in Germany have borne a good record 
in the ranks of the army, although few of them 
have become officers. 

Dr. Phillippson has raised a monument to Ger- 
man Jews in connection with the war of 1870 
by publishing the result of investigations made 
among his co-religionists in 132 communities. 
His conclusions are that the Jewish population 
furnished its full complement to the active army 
during that struggle, and earned a very respecta- 
ble number of Iron Crosses as the reward of 
bravery. The Jews have warm friends in Ger- 
many, both in Parliament and in the press, and 
the merits of the Jew question are pretty thor- 
oughly discussed there from every point of view. 
In no community is religious toleration so much 
a matter of principle as in Germany, and the 
idea of making a distinction between Jew and 
Christian on religious grounds never entered the 
mind of a practical German legislator. Every 
German school -boy is brought up to regard the 
greatness of Prussia as owing largely to the ref- 
uge it has afforded in past ages to the persecuted 
of all other countries, whether Protestants from 
France or Jews from Spain. But even amongst 
liberal Germans there is growing up a feeling 



130 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

that the Jews of their country are more than 
their mere numbers represent ; that they are to 
some extent a political society whose organiza- 
tion covers the world, and whose aims are not al- 
together those of the citizens amongst whom thev 
are protected. No Protestant German has ill-will 
towards his fellow-citizen of the Roman Catholic 
faith, and if Lutherans ever show a disposition 
to depart from their principle of toleration it 
is when they have reason to dread the influence 
of Jesuits as a political power, whose centre is 
not within the limits of the empire. The Jewish 
question is growing in importance amongst Ger- 
mans, as it has grown in importance in Hungary, 
in Roumania, and, above all, in Russia. It is 
bound to go on increasing in proportion as the 
Jews decline to identify themselves completely 
with the people amongst whom they traffic and 
make their money. It is not a trifling matter 
that the people of these countries regard the 
Israelite as one of a different nation and race, 
but it is vastly more serious when amongst these 
people there develops a widespread fear that the 
supply of Jews from Russia may assume propor- 
tions still more disastrous. 



SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 



Y friend Captain Zinnowitz 
came to dinner with me one 
night in Berlin. He was in- 
vited particularly to meet 
Remington, and we spent a 
long evening together talking 
about his work as an officer 
of the Prussian army. I knew 
that he had been into Rus- 
sian Poland several times for 
the benefit of his government, 
and therefore drew the con- 
versation on to the best means 
of succeeding at this delicate 
work. 

" When I go into Poland," 
said he, " I am not an officer 
any longer ; I dress my hair 
differently, and become sim- 
ply plain Mr. , who is 

seeking employment as a hy- 
draulic engineer. T have, of 
course, an address in a small provincial German 
town, from which all my letters come and where 




132 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

I have a trusted friend ready to answer all ques- 
tions in regard to my occupation and identity 
should the Russian secret police make inquiries 
in regard to me. Last year I was instructed to 
report upon a line of railway projected at a cer- 
tain point in Poland, and for that reason hired a 
Jew to pilot me. We went together for some 
distance, when the Jew told me that there were 
two policemen on the train evidently on our 
tracks, and that he would go no farther. I went 
on alone, and at the next station jumped off on 
the side farthest from the railway station, and 
made for the woods. I had not gone far, how- 
ever, when the two policemen overtook me, and 
demanded to know what my business was. Of 
course I had to make up a plausible story, and 
therefore remarked that I was buying wood, and 
had to inspect the forests of the neighborhood. 
Upon this, one of them said that there were no 
forests in the direction in which I was going, and 
that I must accompany them to the police sta- 
tion. To this I objected, protesting that I had 
been informed of a vast amount of timber cut 
and stored near here. Now this timber had all 
been cut for the purposes of the railway I was 
to report upon. The Russian policemen admitted 
that such was the case, much to my satisfaction, 
but said that they must take me to headquarters, 
under any circumstances, where I would be ex- 
amined as a matter of form. So off we went to- 




DRAGOON OFFICER IN STREET DRESS 



SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 1 35 

gether, the policemen leading me into the very 
fort that I did not dream of getting into, because 
it was a new one, guarded with particular jeal- 
ousy, and one about which my government was 
very anxious to gain accurate information. As 
we marched along, however, the question of how 
to get rid of my secret notes embarrassed me, for 
had anything of this kind been found upon me, 
of course I should have been taken out and 
hanged. To accomplish my object I pulled out 
cigars, which I offered to my guardians ; they ac- 
cepted them with an ill grace, but did not smoke 
them. As I proceeded to light mine, I held with 
the cigar a bit of the tissue-paper on which I had 
made memoranda, and as my match burned it lit 
not only my cigar, but consumed the tissue- 
paper I held in the hollow of my hand. I had to 
allow my cigar to go out several times in order 
to get rid of the notes I had made, and heaved 
a great sigh of relief when the last piece was de- 
stroyed. When we reached the fortress I was 
taken to the commandant and inspected careful- 
ly ; that is to say, every part of my person was 
investigated to see if I had not concealed the 
smallest scrap of paper. My passport was then 
copied out, and I was allowed to go. They or- 
dered me back the same way, but, by dint of 
very energetic language, I succeeded in persuad- 
ing them to let me pass on to the next town, 
by which means I was enabled to go completely 



136 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

through the works of the fort, and report exactly 
upon their extent. On arrival home, after sev- 
eral more episodes of the same kind, my govern- 
ment suggested to me the desirability of knowing 
more of the interior construction of this work, and 
when I see you next year I will tell you some 
more." 

Neither Remington nor I ever saw him again. 
He spoke of his adventures as lightly as though 
he were recounting some steeple-chase episode, 
and regarded quite as naturally that he should 
run the risk of being hanged from day to day as 
that he should wear his uniform and go to pa- 
rade. A few months after this little dinner I 
dined with another interesting character, a young 
army surgeon with whom I had long had friendly 
relations. He appeared rather depressed, at first 
reluctant to answer my questions, but finally told 
me this : 

" I have just come from Thorn, a fortress of 
Prussia on the Vistula, close to the Russian fron- 
tier. Last night I held the hand of a man who 
died in a semi-delirious state. He had crawled 
across the frontier with great difficulty, for he 
was in the last stages of disease, and had been 
brought down the river to this fortress to the 
military hospital. He gave a name that is not in 
the army list, and died without our being able to 
make out very much about him. I presume that 
now the authorities have discovered what they 




CUIRASSIER 
From a Sketch in Unter clen Linden 



SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 139 

wish ; but I was forced to leave him immediately 
after his death. The night before he died he 
managed, with great difficulty, to let me know 
this much : He was an officer in the Prussian 
army, had disguised himself as a Lithuanian peas- 
ant, and had sought employment in the neighbor- 
hood of a fortress in Poland. For this purpose 
he had to make himself as dirty and ragged as 
the peasants about him, and to harden his hands 
and features so that he might not arouse the sus- 
picion of his employers. He lived in a peasant's 
hut, and after several weeks succeeded in being 
employed to carry wood into the fortress. Little 
by little he succeeded in gaining the information 
he desired, partly by pacing off distances, part- 
ly by personal inspection, and partly by careful 
questioning of his fellow-workmen. The nervous 
exhaustion which followed this painful kind of 
work — laboring with his hands all day, and then 
using the night hours for his scientific work, com- 
bined with the hourly fear of detection — pro- 
duced a state of body and mind which ended in 
a fever. The notes he had made were too valu- 
able to be abandoned, so he determined, cost 
what it might, to get into Germany before he 
died. He just managed to succeed. The Prus- 
sian Intelligence Department has now complete 
knowledge on one point at least, and another 
officer has died happy in the consciousness of 
having done his duty." 



140 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

This little anecdote is one of hundreds illus- 
trating the difficulties in the way of keeping up 
what the Germans consider the Intelligence De- 
partment, or the Great General Staff of their 
army. Every German officer knows that if he 
wishes a furlough for six months, he can always 
get it accorded provided he gives his superiors 
the assurance that he means to employ his time 
not in seeking pleasure, but in gathering infor- 
mation valuable to his country; he may wish to 
learn a new language, to make a report upon a 
particular equipment of a particular foreign army, 
to study horse-breeding. No matter what it is, 
inquiry of every kind is encouraged, provided it 
bears directly or indirectly upon the efficiency of 
the service. 

To illustrate' the care taken of the soldier in 
the German army, let me mention the subject 
of shoes. There is in Berlin, in a very out-of- 
the-way place, a government museum devoted 
entirely to hygiene. The famous Professor Koch 
is the head of this excellent institution, or at 
least he was so when I last visited it. Among 
the exhibits the most interesting to me was a 
lot of boots and shoes, with explanatory legends 
in regard to the relative merit of them for 
marching purposes. The ones that appear to 
have given the greatest satisfaction were very 
broad in the toes ; in fact, so broad that the foot 
appeared to have no support except upon the 




A HEAVY SWELL — GUARD HUSSAR 



SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 143 

sole, thus allowing the greatest possible room for 
the expansion of the bones. In lieu of stock- 
ings, the article recommended was a woollen rag 
cut square and folded over the foot according 
to the taste of the wearer. The great advan- 
tage of these square woollen rags over the stock- 
ing is that while the stocking is apt to wear a 
hole either at the heel or at the toe, this woollen 
rag is shifted every time the boot is taken off, 
and thus insures an equal distribution of friction 
over all its parts. When the woollen rag is tak- 
en off it is very easily washed, and dries much 
more readily than the stocking; it is also more 
conveniently folded in the knapsack, and per- 
haps even on the score of economy has some- 
thing in its favor. Between this excellent wool- 
len rag and the care taken in regard to the 
selection of boots and shoes, so much has been 
achieved for the foot-gear of the soldier that it 
has now become axiomatic that any difficulty 
with a soldier's feet must be presumed to spring 
from a soldier's own carelessness. There are 
two things which the German officer does not 
and cannot condone — one is non - efficiency of 
the soldier's rifle, the other a chafed foot. If 
either of these two takes place on the march 
or during the manoeuvres, the soldier is immedi- 
ately punished with arrest, and is not allowed 
to offer any excuse. During the different ma- 
noeuvres of German army corps that I have at- 



i i j THE BORDERLAND 01 CZAH and KAI8EB 

tended, I i an re( al] bul .1 few 1 ases ol fool sore 
men In the course ol .1 day's work, and yel al 
.ill 1 hesi ii< Id operal ions for* ed man hes are .1 
fcal ure, in ordei to 1 est 1 he endurani e oi orri< ers 
and men. 1 he s< < ret <-i 1 his uniform ex< ellence, 
as regards man inn:' powers, lies' in the 1 raining 
which Mh' men receive, When they entei their 
( ompany as i< « 1 uits in ( >< tobei , 1 he firsl 1 hing 
1 li.it is impressed upon 1 heii minds is 1 in- im 
portan( e <»i 1 he shoe and 1 he musket. No pains 
are spared in giving 1 lx men -it 1 li< starl com 
Portable fool geai , and 1 hey are expe< ted t<» look 
aftei 1 his wil h as mm li interesl as ii ii wen .1 
1 hronometer. In 1 In- spi ing following, when 1 lie 
snow is <>M 1 Ii*- gn >und, mai 1 hes .in- undei 1 aken, 
and 1 hese are regulal 1 <i as 1 arefully as are the 
si rokes and 1 he < ourses «>i 1 he < ollege < rew mi 
dei t Im hands <>i the 1 rainer, Bai li day 1 ii< men 

111. in li h.ill .1 mile 01 so l.n I In i lli.m the d.iy 

bef ire ; ea< I) day 1 hi y < ai 1 v <>n t heii bai k an 
.mum e 01 1 wo more ; ea( li day 1 he speed I hey are 
able to maintain is • arefully noted ; in fact, 1 1>< 

record <>i .1 company's man hing 1 lay t<> <lay, 

until Lit*- int.. the summer, when tiny move into 
1 he open < ounl 1 v, Is kepi as minutely as il it 
were a single picked * ompany 1 raining i<>i a 
in. itch 01 i ompel it ive <ii ill- The ( rei man soldier 
is educated and 1 rained foi I he pui pose «»i fight 
iii;>, .Hid to have .1 m. in fall <>ut before In- rea< li 
es 1 he in*' I'm' is looked upon as quite as much 



SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 147 

a disaster as if he had been shot and wounded 
by the enemy. The art of war, as practised in 
Germany, is very much the art of " getting 
there," and it is the general who posts himself 
most advantageously at the critical moment that 
may be assumed to have won the battle. The 
marching of German troops is something quite 
extraordinary, not in the performance of any in- 
dividual man or company or regiment, but in the 
fact that the commander-in-chief can count upon 
all the parts of his command accomplishing a 
very high average of collective work, each part 
doing substantially as much as the other. 

The so-called " iron ration " is an institution 
to which the Germans attach great importance. 
It is the soldier's food in a preserved shape, and 
not to be opened except in an extreme case 
of necessity ; as, for instance, on a forced march 
preceding a battle. In ordinary times he must 
forage and requisition as well as he can, but the 
iron ration must not be touched, no matter how 
weary he is after his day's march. The prepara- 
tion of this iron ration has been the subject of 
extensive chemical investigation in Germany, in 
order to arrive at the article which concentrates 
the greatest amount of nutrition in the most 
enduring shape; the factories where this iron 
ration is prepared are not open to public inspec- 
tion, although I have no doubt that the French 
have full information on this subject. 



148 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

The Germans are very thrifty in their habits, 
and no one visiting a German barrack- room 
would suspect their military authorities of ex- 
travagance, yet in regard to uniforms they seem 
to us extremely liberal ; each soldier has five 
uniforms for varying degrees of work. The most 
inexpensive is the coarse linen one used in sum- 
mer about the barracks, and the most valuable 
one is that which he wears on extraordinary fes- 
tive occasions, as, for instance, the grand review 
of the Guards in the spring of the year ; but be- 
yond all those which he wears at more or less 
frequent intervals is the uniform which he puts 
on when the Emperor issues his order to mobil- 
ize for war. Then is taken out the absolutely 
new uniform, and with this he marches to the 
front. The troops that marched to the frontier 
in 1870 looked as though ready for a review 
rather than for the dirty work of campaigning. 

There is a tyranny amongst German officers 
which would strike us as outrageous — not tyran- 
ny over soldiers, but tyranny of superior officers 
over inferior ones. It can only be explained by 
the rules governing the admission of officers to 
the German army. In most countries, as with 
us, admission to the army is gained by passing 
stiff examinations and nothing more. In the Ger- 
man army, not only must a series of difficult exami- 
nations be passed, but the candidate for epaulets 
must at the same time be chosen into a regi- 




THE OLD GENERAL 



SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 151 

ment by the officers of that regiment. Thus a 
young man who may have shown his proficiency 
in military science may yet fail to become an 
officer if he is regarded as a disagreeable mess- 
fellow by every regiment in the army. Perhaps 
it is possible to plead that any man who cannot 
get an election to a single regiment had better 
remain out of the army, on the presumption that 
if he is unpopular with those who have every 
opportunity of knowing about him, he would 
most likely be an unpopular officer with the 
men, and consequently be a detriment to the 
service. Nominally the German army is the 
most democratic institution in Europe, for all 
able-bodied men must serve in it, without dis- 
tinction of race, color, or rank. As a matter of 
fact, the veto power which a regimental mess 
has upon would-be members is not a serious de- 
terrent to candidates, because, as a rule, the man 
who desires to become an officer usually has 
friends in some regiment of the service ; and it 
is only fair to say that no German regiment 
would ever exclude a man without reasons 
which would be considered valid by the Depart- 
ment of War. The present rules, however, have 
this advantage, that they create among the officers 
of a regiment not merely the feeling that they 
are parts of a great machine, but that they are a 
social organization bound together by ties as in- 
timate as those uniting a lodge of Freemasons; 



152 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

that they have to stand one by the other in 
peace and war, and that the honor of one is the 
honor of all. The regiments of the German 
army differ as families differ. In some regi- 
ments names reproduce themselves for centuries 
back, and also groups of names, showing that 
the traditions of social life have passed down 
from one generation to another in one unbroken 
line from a time when Prussia was merely a 
province of the Roman Empire. Life in a regi- 
mental mess is so intimate that the admission to 
it of an outsider is a matter of grave debate on 
the part of all members, from the colonel down ; 
and the greatest pains are taken that the candi- 
date shall sustain the traditions which the regi- 
ment has accumulated. When the German offi- 
cer becomes a member of a regiment, almost all 
his actions are influenced by the opinion of his 
superior officers — even matrimony. No officer 
can marry without the consent of his colonel, 
and this consent can be obtained only after a 
careful inquiry into all the circumstances sur- 
rounding the proposed alliance. First, is the 
young lady suitable for association with the 
wives of the other officers? Secondly, will the 
bridegroom be able to live respectably and bring 
up his family? Thirdly, are his means or those 
of his wife invested in proper securities, so that 
he is not liable to be expelled by reason of 
bankruptcy ? These precautions seem exceed- 



V 




SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 1 55 

ingly paternal, but I am assured that they pre- 
vent a great deal of unhappiness, for a young 
officer is very apt to contract matrimony with- 
out reference to the future means of support ; 
and, moreover, is apt to be more rash than he 
would be if he could see himself through the 
eyes of more experienced men. 

This paternal care is also illustrated by the 
attitude of German military authorities in re- 
gard to the duel. Fighting is happily rare 
amongst German officers, owing to its discour- 
agement by the present emperor, and the regu- 
lations governing the appeal to the sword. The 
German army has decided that all duelling is 
wrong, and that it can only be condoned in 
cases where every other remedy has been tried 
and found insufficient. German officers have 
courts of honor convened for the special pur- 
pose of entertaining charges which would lead 
to "a duel; before these courts only the most 
delicate personal matters are tried, and the 
question determined as to how far an apology 
can be brought about or a duel avoided. Apy 
officer who ventures upon a duel without hav- 
ing received first the consent of a court of honor 
renders himself liable to immediate disgrace by 
dismissal. It is safe to say that these courts of 
honor do an enormous amount towards making 
duelling difficult, if not impossible. 

The social position of the German officers 



156 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

is the most coveted in Germany. This is not 
merely because as a rule German officers spring 
from ancient or noble families, or that their reg- 
imental messes are very paternally managed, so 
as to exclude undesirable elements. He is rec- 
ognized, over and above that, as of a superior 
training intellectually, as a hard worker, and one 
to whom the nation looks for defence in case of 
war. A foreign invasion is at all times so pres- 
ent to the mind of the German that the army 
never for a moment loses its great significance 
to the people. With us, our men are so far away 
on the outskirts of civilization that we scarcelv 
hear of them, and many an American has grown 
to manhood without being able to describe the 
uniform of the American army. The German 
officer always wears his uniform, and wherever 
he moves represents the majesty of the law as 
well as the national power. If a landlord wishes 
to recommend his beer -room to you, he can 
say nothing higher than that it is frequented by 
officers. A theatre in which officers do not ap- 
p^r is considered to have sunk below the level 
of good society. Officers at German dinners and 
balls are much coveted, for the officer is assumed 
to have good-breeding, and to be in all respects 
a cultivated man. During the great military 
operations in the autumn, officers are quartered 
upon the proprietors of the neighborhood, and 
far from this being regarded as a nuisance, those 




UHLAN OFFICER IN FIELD TRIM 



SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 1 59 

who have officers billeted upon them consider 
the circumstance rather agreeable than other- 
wise. When parades and reviews are the order 
of the day, when traffic is blocked upon the 
streets, the friendship of an officer is more than 
sentimental pleasure, for he can take you through 
all the lines which the police hold against the 
great army of citizens. An officer can go any- 
where in uniform, and enjoys social advantages 
from the very moment of putting on his shoul- 
der-straps which men in other walks of life do 
not attain until they have distinguished them- 
selves very much indeed. It is in Germany a 
great thing to go to court, and very few ever suc- 
ceed in entering that charmed circle excepting 
through the army. An officer goes to court as a 
matter of course, although if his wife is not of 
a certain rank she may be excluded. In England 
pretty much everybody goes to court who choos- 
es to incur the expense of the court dress, and 
all Americans that come to London are pre- 
sented to the queen if they choose. The late 
Mr. William Walter Phelps remarked recently 
that in Germany no American had been present- 
ed at court in eighteen years, unless by special 
request either of the Department of State or 
for some corresponding official reason. This 
gives one an idea of the enormous importance 
attaching in Germany to the mere formal 
presentation to the sovereign, which causes so 



6o THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 



much heart-burning amongst those who cannot 



The extraordinary social advantages enjoyed 
by the German officer, and the pecuniary respon- 
sibility growing naturally from such advantage, 
make his small pay, which amounts only to about 
a dollar a day in the case of a first lieutenant, ap- 
pear even smaller than it is. An American lady 
who had been spending a winter in Dresden 
told me that all the bachelors of the garrison 
were furnished with a list of marriageable wom- 
en, each name ornamented with the property she 
might be expected to inherit. This, I have no 
doubt, was a mistake on her part, but it is a very 
common one. German officers stationed in de- 
sirable towns are very apt to get into debt, and 
have to choose between leaving the army in dis- 
grace or marrying a rich girl. This explains why 
it is that so many officers in Germany have mar- 
ried Jewesses, in spite of the fact that no Jew can 
become an officer. I do not pretend that Ger- 
man officers are more mercenary than those of 
other armies, but as there are so many of them, 
nearly 30,000 in time of peace, the number of bad 
ones must necessarily be great. The same ten- 
dency I have heard complained of in the English 
army, where the pay is correspondingly small and 
the social demands equally great. From my own 
experience in Germany the officers would appear 
to have married for love, and to be very happy 



SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 1 63 

in consequence. The number of those who get 
into debt and fail to secure a rich wife is consid- 
erable, although it makes no particular ripple on 
the surface ; such men simply disappear, and turn 
up sooner or later in America, where they take 
employment as coachmen, waiters, teachers, or 
instructors in riding-schools. The change of life 
is very violent, and is adopted only as preferable 
to suicide. 

The number of German officers one sees on the 
streets is remarkably small compared to the size 
of the garrison, and the explanation of this fact 
is that they are too hard at work to have any 
time for exhibiting themselves. At four o'clock 
in the morning, during the favorable seasons of 
the year, they are up and in the saddle, out with 
their men drilling them with all their might ; their 
afternoon is occupied with barrack-work, reports, 
and a lot of odds and ends of routine work, which 
leaves them pretty well tired out when evening 
arrives. In France, Russia, Italy, and Austria of- 
ficers seem to have very much more time on their 
hands, to judge by the appearance of the streets 
alone. In England and America the officer may 
be regarded as having great difficulty in employ- 
ing his time so as not to be bored, unless he is a 
singular character, regarded by his comrades as 
rather a " dig," or one riding a hobby. The Ger- 
man officer not only has an amount of daily rou- 
tine work far in excess of what is customary in 



164 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

other armies, but he has to prepare for periodical 
examinations upon which his promotion depends. 
This, perhaps, explains why in society the Ger- 
man officer is found to know usually one or more 
languages besides his own. Last month I met at 
dinner a German officer of the artillery who was 
not even on the Great General Staff, and discov- 
ered by accident that he understood and used 
six foreign languages, namely, Russian, Polish, 
English, French, Scandinavian, and Italian. He 
was a man of means, yet constantly working at 
some new subject for the mere love of improve- 
ment. 

The swac^er of the officer on the street, which 
strikes the travelling Anglo-Saxon, can be com- 
pared to that of the university student, who puts 
upon his head a little cap about the size of a sau- 
cer, and parades the street in a costume intended 
to arrest the attention of others by its ridiculous- 
ness. The very young officer is apt to swagger 
because of the novelty he enjoys in wearing a 
uniform for the first time, but this swagger is 
rarely maintained excepting amongst cavalry offi- 
cers, who are mostly recruited from the wealthier 
aristocracy, and are not presumed to bring with 
them as much intellectual weight as the rest of 
the army. The German school-boy is kept in a 
species of slavery from the time he is seven years 
of age to the moment when he either goes to the 
university or becomes an officer. During these 



SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 167 

years of bard mental training he is almost entire- 
ly deprived of any opportunity to develop him- 
self either in the field of sports or in society. 
The transition, therefore, is most violent when, 
from the nursery as it were, he is suddenly placed 
upon the highest level of social consideration by 
investing himself with epaulets. That he should 
not make a fool of himself on many occasions is 
unreasonable to expect, and it is only a source 
of wonder that he so soon conquers the natural 
tendency of an inexperienced man. 

In the autumn of every year, when the bulk of 
the crops has been harvested, so that troops may 
march across country without doing very much 
damage to crops, the whole of the German army, 
including a large proportion of reserves who are 
called in for special training, may be said to ap- 
pear in the field on a war footing. Instead of 
sending a regiment or so to spend a few weeks 
sheltered by canvas, the whole country becomes 
alive with marching companies and regiments, 
marching sometimes hundreds of miles to meet 
an imaginary enemy, as though war had been de- 
clared. During these marches they skirmish with 
detachments sent to meet them ; they have to 
guard against attack by night as well as by day ; 
they have to provide for forage and food as 
though in actual war; they quarter themselves 
as best they can in villages, and often sleep out 
in the open with no protection over their heads, 



l68 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

and none beneath them unless they can find 
some straw to lie upon. The annual mobiliza- 
tion of troops all over the country, amounting 
to about half a million of men, is a serious 
source of expense, which is, however, cheerfully 
borne, because it is recognized to be the only 
means of teaching a soldier his duty in the pres- 
ence of an enemy. So far as I know, the only 
work done in our army that corresponds in any 
degree to that in the German is that represented 
by the long marches which General Miles ini- 
tiated in our Southwestern country amongst our 
cavalry, sending them hundreds of miles through 
the wilderness, liable not only to capture by the 
rival columns of United States troops, but also 
to actual destruction by Apaches. Any one who 
has seen the thoroughly business-like way in 
which our cavalry does its duty as compared 
with the methods of such of our troops as are 
quartered in or about large towns, without any 
corresponding training, will quickly appreciate 
the distinction between the real soldier and the 
make-believe one. Each year in Germany, over 
and above the infinite number of small field 
operations, there is one on a larger scale, com- 
monly referred to as the grand manoeuvres, 
which takes place when all the scattered garri- 
sons representing one army corps unite in order 
of battle against another army corps gathered 
together in the same way. From the time of a 




AN OFFICER OF ARTILLERY 



SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 171 

company's leaving its garrison to the time when 
it becomes part of an army corps the distance 
marched may be two or three hundred miles, 
and the time occupied two or three months, ac- 
cording to circumstances. These grand manoeu- 
vres are always attended by the emperor in per- 
son, who commands now on one side and now 
on the other, testing the efficiency of every 
branch of his service as thoroughly as is possible 
without the use of ball-cartridge. When one 
bears in mind that a single army corps marching 
along a single road occupies for its 30,000 men 
between thirty and forty miles, it is easy to see 
how much complication can be produced by at- 
tempting to bring those men rapidly to the 
front in line of battle, extending, perhaps, ten 
miles between the extremities of the two wings. 
Then, too, there are the difficulties in the way of 
bringing up to each company or battalion the 
ammunition and food supplies, quartering the 
men, providing them with water, and keeping 
them fit for the next day's hard work. These 
problems never enter into the manoeuvres under- 
taken at Peekskill or Aldershot, where the men 
return to the same quarters every night. The 
German officer knows that aside from his profes- 
sional knowledge as tested by paper examina- 
tions, his promotion and general career as an 
officer will be largely modified by the work 
which he does during the autumn manoeuvres. 



i y ! i n E ftl >r i »!■ i- 1 \ r : i . OF CZAR ani» KAISEB 

1 l< may know his I hi orel ii al st ral i -.v by hcai I , 
i, hi M h< planl a his battery too fai one way 01 
i he "i hei , ii he m gl< cts to si izi I hi i ight posi 
i ion, il he leads his i avail y into .1 swamp, ii he 
brings his men undei .1 fire where I hey may pre 
sumably e *pi 1 1 annihilal ion, ii he does a hun 
dred 1 hings whi< h in real wai would be fatal, and 
againsl whii h no texl books can protect him, hi 
I-. iniiiK diati ly the 1 >bje< 1 1 »i severe critii ism by 
tip ci immandi 1 in 1 hi< 1 rhe field is si udded 
wiili 1 - pei ien< ed officers whi 1 a< 1 s< >1< ly as um 
pires, 1 iding from one d< 1 ai hmenl i<> the other, 
.umI making minute note 1 oi evei y\ hing whii h 
1 hey see. I hi gr< al v\ ai game is playi d undei 

1 ei tain 1 ules whii h militai y exp 1 1 has 

shown i" be w< ll d( visi d, basi d upon expi 1 1 
< n. . in .u 1 11. il w .11 , .mil when 1 hese 1 ules ai e vii 1 
l.ti ed 1 he offi< ei maj expect to sufTei in ( on i< 
qui 11, e rhe troops taking part in these ma 
noeuvres have no previous knowledge ol the 
( ..mil 1 \ ovi 1 whi( li 1 hey are to operate, and 
i herefore theii offii ers ha> 1 to bet ome as pra< 
tised In 1 he use oi map and * ompass as .1 saiioi 
.ii sea, Tlx \ are told simply 1 ha1 bet ween two 
points several hundreds of miles apart .1 battle 
may be reasonably < Kpe< ted mm h as 1 hough a 
( ..ilium . .1 . .in 1 roops were ordered to man h 
from New \ "oi I. to Pit tsburg on a < ertain day, 
having only 1 he Infoi mat ion 1 ha1 wil Inn .1 hun 
dred miles ol 1 he lal t< 1 pla< e resistan< e mighl 



SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 1 75 

be expected from a certain force. Of course in 
Germany the very best maps are at the service of 
the officers— maps on the scale of about one mile 
to the inch. These maps are made by the govern- 
ment, and sold at a very small price. During the 
grand manoeuvres it is the custom of the com- 
mander-in-chief, after the day's work is conclud- 
ed, to sound the bugle-call that assembles all the 
officers about him— at least as many as can come ; 
he then delivers what is called the critique, a 
general critical summary of the day's work. The 
present emperor is particularly noted for the 
thoroughness with which he conducts his cri- 
tiques ; his memory is extraordinary, his knowl- 
edge of soldiers' detail work equally so, and he 
has besides the physical energy that enables him 
to overlook nearly every part of the great battle- 
field. This is an advantage which makes his crit- 
ical discussions much more dreaded even than 
those of his grandfather, who in his latter years 
was naturally unable to attend manoeuvres more 
than in a somewhat perfunctory manner. 

For the officers and men in general the manoeu- 
vres afford little amusement. They have to be 
up long before the sun, their work all day is of 
the hardest kind, they are quartered in stables 
and peasants' houses almost as comfortless as 
the bare ground, and if they have any hours of 
leisure they are not where they could possibly 
enjoy any social relaxation, but in fact the care 



176 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 




OFFICER OF DRAGOONS IN THE FIELD 



of their men must nec- 
essarily occupy all their 
time, to say nothing 
of preparations for the 
morrow. 

It is a little better 
for those who are im- 
mediately in the suite 
of the emperor, either 
as guests or as officers 
commanded to head- 
quarters, as, for in- 
stance, the inspectors of 
different departments, 
the umpires, and high 
officers of other army 
corps. These have no 
great responsibilities af- 
ter the day's fighting 
closes, and at once re- 
turn to the headquarters 
in some town, where 
they are properly lodged 
and fed. The emper- 
or usually 
g i v e s a 
dinner ev- 
t ery even- 

• -~'v ...,<; ing to the 
principal 



:^:^ ; ,c#i: 



■a- 




SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 1 79 

officers and officials in the neighborhood, as 
well as to the principal citizens residing near 
by. He seizes the opportunity of the grand 
manoeuvres to make the acquaintance person- 
ally of the principal people in the different 
sections of his country, and combines politics 
with war in an efficient way. The social feat- 
ures of the grand manoeuvres do very much to 
bring notable people of different parts of the 
country together, and thus little by little to ef- 
face the jealousies which naturally exist among 
citizens of the different states who have only 
been united since the Franco-German war. The 
year 1892 was the first in the reign of the pres- 
ent emperor that had no imperial or grand ma- 
noeuvres, for the obvious reason that cholera was 
present in many German towns, and particularly 
in France close to the German border. They 
will probably, however, take place this year — 
1893 — as usual, and in the neighborhood of 
where they should have been last year, namely, 
about Metz. It is much to be hoped that they 
will be carried out so as to bring the people of 
this province into contact with the emperor and 
his surroundings. The result cannot fail to at 
least modify those feelings of antipathy which 
people of the lately French provinces are still 
said to entertain for their German conqueror. 
The French press persists in nurturing the idea 
that Germans are more or less coarse and cruel 



l8o THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

masters, and that Alsace and Lorraine cannot 
long remain separated from the land of Napo- 
leon. Nothing will do more to alter any such 
feeling than to come into personal relations with 
the chief of the German nation, and to see the 
manner in which he handles troops. He com- 
mands with a skill that does not encourage the 
idea of Alsace and Lorraine changing hands dur- 
ing his lifetime at least. 

The German officer does remarkably little in 
the way of athletics or sport of any kind ; the 
main reasons are that he is short both of time 
and of money, particularly of time. The train- 
ing to the eye and the judgment which comes 
from cross-country riding over hedges and ditch- 
es in pursuit of a fox or a deer would be a very 
valuable addition to the accomplishments of the 
German officer of to-day. Among the crack 
cavalry regiments there is considerable steeple- 
chasing, but, on account of the expense, it is 
limited to those who have large means. It is a 
rare thing for an officer to take part in rowing, 
sailing, bicycling, football, cricket, tennis, base- 
ball, golf, or any of the games which do so much 
to render a man master of his muscles. The 
present emperor has done very much to make 
sport popular and fashionable. He realizes fully 
the advantages which a man brought up to ath- 
letic games has over one who has only the train- 
ing of the professional soldier, but I fear it will 



SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 1 83 

take a generation educated differently from the 
present to bring about a reform so much to be 
desired. The evil commences during the school 
years. 

The German boy, up to his eighteenth or 
nineteenth year, when he leaves school, is looked 
upon merely as a machine for grinding out Latin, 
Greek, and mathematics. If he has in each week 
two or three hours devoted to gymnastic exer- 
cises, he considers himself fortunate. It never 
enters his head that he should spend at least 
three hours a day in out -door games of some 
kind. His teachers hold up their hands in hor- 
ror at the idea of devoting as much attention to 
the physical culture of their pupils as to the 
cramming of their minds with dead knowledge. 
Even my excellent German tutor who fitted me 
for Yale, and who was himself a teacher of gym- 
nastics, regarded it as monstrous that boys should 
spend two or three hours a day in playing foot- 
ball or rowing. The whole professorial caste of 
Germany, loyal as it is to the Hohenzollerns, re- 
gards this emperor with ill -disguised suspicion 
because of his desire that the German school- 
boy should be a typically vigorous creature as 
well as an educated one. The drudgery of the 
school-boy's life can scarcely be credited by one 
who has not lived it, and it is only because the 
emperor has suffered under it that he is now so 
strong an advocate for improvement. 



184 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

The injury to health, which is the direct re- 
sult of the unnatural life led by the German boy, 
has become strangely apparent in late years, 
through published statistics ; but even without 
them the evils manifest themselves to impartial 
eyes in the difficulty of getting men of proper 
build to fill the ranks of the officers' corps. If 
the War Department accomplishes nothing more 
than to bring pressure upon the academic bodies 
in this one direction, it will have justified its ex- 
istence ; and if the present emperor should die 
having done nothing greater than to leave every 
school-child the right to physical development 
as well as mental, he will have earned the grati- 
tude of every mother and school -child in the 
fatherland. Already football clubs, rowing clubs, 
sailing clubs, are in existence, and are destined 
to increase in number and importance. Germany 
has made enormous strides in the last ten years 
in the field of sport, and shows no signs of going 
backwards. German oarsmen and bicyclists are 
making excellent records ; they take to sport 
naturally wherever they are afforded the oppor- 
tunities, and as soon as the school-boy is allowed 
his afternoons free for out-door exercise, there is 
no reason to doubt that the German fields will 
be studded with active lads hard at their games, 
exactly as in every Anglo-Saxon community to- 
day ; nor is there any reason to suppose that in 
consequence of this liberty the German will 



SIDE LIGHTS ON THE GERMAN SOLDIER 



185 



prove less able to de- 
fend his country, or 
hold his own as a 
manufacturer or mer- 
chant or professional 
man in competition 
with those of other 
countries. 

When the school- 
boy becomes the stu- 
dent or the officer, 
he immediately prac- 
tises fencing very as- 
siduously to defend 
what he is pleased to 
call his honor, and he 
is very apt to con- 
clude that only an 
officer or a student is 
possessed of such an 
ornament. This ex- 
ercise of swordsman- 
ship is very good as 
far as it goes ; but, 
judging by the ap- 
pearance of the stu- 
dents who indulge 
most in this manly 
exercise, beer -drink- 
ing forms so large a 




A DRAGOON TRUMPETER 



1 86 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

share of the work done as to almost neutral- 
ize the benefits claimed for it. The fencing 
takes place mostly in rooms dense with tobac- 
co smoke, dust, and human exhalation, and does 
not compare for physical benefit to a game of 
baseball or football. It would assist very much 
in dissipating a great deal of nonsense in Ger- 
many if students at the universities could meas- 
ure their prowess by competing for prizes in out- 
door sports where previous training of a severe 
kind has to be undergone. 

The influence of the German officer upon Ger- 
man life and sport is so great that we can hardly 
imagine sport to become thoroughly popular in 
the fatherland until clubs are formed among the 
officers, and thus made fashionable. The begin- 
ning to this better state of things has been made 
by the emperor, who is not only a good yachts- 
man, oarsman, huntsman, tennis-player, but even 
threatens to sail a canoe. When his views in re- 
gard to the physical education of men and boys 
become general among his subjects, we may look 
for a development of the German officer that shall 
bring him to a considerably higher level than even 
at present. 

In theory the German soldier has substantially 
the same legal guarantees in regard to his rights 
and personal liberty as the private of the United 
States regular army or of England. Any officer 
is liable to court-martial if he addresses his supe- 




CUIRASSIER on STAFF UUTY 



SIDE LIGHTS <>n THE GERMAN SOLDIER [89 

nor officer in language that is unprofessional, ex 
actly as it is with us. Practically, however, the 
German officer often reprimands his stupid sub 
ordinate by a cull' on the cars, which the victim 
receives with equanimity. In fact, he would ral h 
er have the cufTand have done with ii in a few 
minutes, than be tried in .1 more legal form and 
punished by arrest for days, perhaps weeks. Ger 
ui.in:, are irritable, as all people of greal brain ac- 
tivity are, and in a moment <>! excitement use 
language that is unparliamentary and administer 

a box on the ears with Striking rapidity. The 

laws governing the army are very strict in en- 
for< ing the proper treatment <>f the soldier by Ids 
superior, particular stress being laid on the tieces 
sity of maintaining the self respect of the sol 
dier. 

Whoever takes the trouble t<» attend the ma- 
noeuvres <»l French or Russian army corps musl 
be surprised by the many precautions taken to 
prevent their seeing anything. In Germany, on 

the contrary, I am able to say, from having -il 

tended all the grand manoeuvres during the- pres 
ent reign, that no one bothers his head about 
who mayor may not be among the- spectators. 
There arc-, of course:, a number of held gendarmes, 

Who are detailed to protect the spectators from 

sudden charges of cavalry, and to keep order; 
but it never enters their head that they are t<> 

arrest a Frenchman or a Russian, whether he 



// fi\ 



m^H^' 



—Pto 




\ 



r 



Vf >mm> \ 







192 



THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 



be a spy or not. Whenever the German troops 
operate near the frontier, it is well known that 
many of the French officers swell the crowd of 
spectators; every one knows that they are French 
officers dressed up as civilians ; in fact, the story 
is told of a humorous gendarme who was clearing 
the road, and addressed the crowd in front of 
him as follows: "Gentlemen and Messieurs the 
French officers will please move on." The ex- 
planation of this apparent indifference on the 
part of German war authorities in regard to be- 
ing scrutinized by their enemies lies in the fact 
that they know pretty well everything that their 
enemies know in regard to their neighbors, and 
they are equally confident that their enemies are 
pretty well informed about German affairs. If it 
should come to a war, they are willing to depend 
upon the superiority of their organization, and, 
above all, on the superiority of the material com- 
posing their army, both officers and men, partic- 
ularly the officers. 




MOUNTED HUSSAR 



EMPEROR WILLIAM'S STUD- FARM AND 
HUNTING FOREST 



\ / .HEN Remington and I crossed into 
V Y Germany we determined to make 
an excursion into the very eastern- 
most corner of the Prussian monarchy, where 
the father of Frederick the Great established 
a great horse-breedinp; establishment near a lit- 
tie village called Trakehnen. This famous stud- 
farm is still carried on with characteristic en- 




J k .^^:-':s^ 



ergy, and not only provides the German army 
with the hundred thousand horses which it re- 
quires in time of peace, but does an enormous 
amount towards keeping up in the country 
a high standard of horse for general pur- 
poses. Trakehnen is only about ten miles from 
the Russian frontier, and has three times been 



196 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

exposed to capture by invasion from over the 
border ; but each time the authorities have been 
able to escape with all the animals there, a feat 
which appears almost miraculous considering the 
flat and open character of the country. I had 
with me a letter of introduction to the com- 
mandant or governor of this estate, Major von 
Frankenberg-Proschlitz. We alighted one beau- 
tiful day in July at the little station of Trakeh- 
nen. It was the only house in sight, the village 
was four miles away, but the major had kindly 
sent an open carriage to meet us. The drive to 
the major's house was along beautiful avenues 
shaded by oak-trees almost the whole way. When 
we halted at the front door, our host received us 
with every manifestation of good-will, in spite of 
the fact that on the morrow he was anticipating 
an official inspection at the hands of no less im- 
pressive dignitaries than the minister of war and 
his colleague of the Agricultural Department. 
A Prussian inspection is a matter of tremendous 
importance, and that Major von Frankenberg 
under such circumstances should appear com- 
fortable, even genial, speaks volumes for the 
self-reliance and sweetness of that gentleman's 
nature. 

Nothing more pretty can be conceived than 
the appearance of the major's quarters as we 
drove up through the vista of trees. It was 
large, commodious, covered with vines, fragrant 



r^3& 




EMPEROR WILLIAM S STUD-FARM AND FOREST 199 

with the odor of flowers that grew about and be- 
fore the door. A shady lawn stretched in the 
rear with flower beds on its edges, and close by 
was a delightful arbor where coffee was served 
in the afternoon during the warm season. Within 
a few minutes the family of this Prussian offi- 
cer made us feel that we had once more fallen 
amongst good friends. The kind major quickly 
divined the interest which we felt in the great 
horse-breeding establishment which he controlled, 
and as soon as luncheon was disposed of lost no 
time in driving us about from point to point, 
chatting with us in regard to what we saw, and 
answering our questions with frankness. 

To begin with, Trakehnen is situated in the 
most favored province of Germany for horse- 
breeding purposes, although, geographically con- 
sidered, it appears to be the most unpropitious. 
Nearly every farm in East Prussia is devoted to 
this one occupation, and the German army gets 
many more horses from this little corner than 
any other province or kingdom of the empire. 
The war authorities are, in respect to this branch 
of the government, very liberal, for it affects the 
army directly as well as it does the country in- 
directly. The very best thoroughbreds that can 
be bought for money are brought here, and from 
them are bred a secondary class of horses which 
the Germans call " halbblut," a word which can- 
not be safely translated as half-breed, but is more 



200 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

nearly rendered by the French " pres du sang." 
Every year some of the best names on the Eng- 
lish turf disappear in favor of the breeding-farms 
for the German cavalry. The stallions chosen 
are such as have good records on the race-track, 
and, in addition, the peculiar qualities of form 
and structure which the German officer consid- 
ers essential to the ideal cavalry horse — that is 
to say, one in whom speed and weight -carrying 
capacity unite to the highest possible degree. 
All told, Trakehnen has about a thousand head 
of every age, but of only one general class. It 
has been by strict adherence to the principle of 
selection above mentioned that the Trakehner or 
Prussian horse has reached its present definite 
position and high level of power. Remington's 
drawings will give a better notion of the ideal 
which the Prussian military authorities entertain 
on the subject of this horse than any lengthy 
description which I might attempt. Suffice it 
to say that Germans at least consider themselves 
amply compensated for the cost of this institu- 
tion during the two centuries of its existence. 

The major does not breed for the race-track 
nor for the plough ; he has in view the heavy 
cavalry cuirassier horse, or the requirements of 
the lighter hussar, and. Trakehnen may be con- 
sidered a national stud-farm, in so far as the horse 
required for the cavalry is one that is useful for 
other purposes as well. 




MASSAGE OF A COLT S KNEES 



We pulled up in a field in which. were a hun- 
dred three-year-old stallions running free and 
watched by two herders, each bearing a long 
whip, which he cracked now and then as a warn- 
ing that some one of the herd was straying. 
The herders had no saddles or stirrups, sat sim- 
ply upon a blanket strapped to the horse's back, 
and were dressed in the livery of the estate, which 
is not dissimilar to the grooms' livery of the 
royal family. Any one familiar with three-year- 



202 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

old stallions in English or American stables 
might easily expect that a herd of one hundred 
would be disposed to resent the intrusion of a 
couple of strangers in their midst, especially re- 
membering that these colts were of thorough-bred 
parents, at least on one side, and of fair blood on 
the other. We naturally remarked that the herd 
appeared very quiet, and paid little attention to 
our carriage as it drove up close to them on the 
grass. The major wished us, however, to under- 
stand that they were as gentle as sheep and not 
half as shy, and, in order to make a practical test 
of this, I jumped from my seat and walked up 
to the herd, into the very midst of them, stroll- 
ing in and out amongst them, patting them on 
the nose or on the flank, wherever I happened 
to be nearest them. Amongst German cavalry 
horses I had often experienced an extraordinary 
amount of docility, which comes naturally as the 
result of intelligent handling on the part of the 
grooms, and was therefore more or less prepared 
to risk the heels and the teeth of those into 
whose midst Major von Frankenberg requested 
me to wander. 

If this docility sprang from sleepiness or 
coarseness of blood, there would be little worth 
noting, but in the case of animals of most un- 
questioned pluck and power the experience is 
certainly unique. 

" How do you accomplish this result?" we asked. 




A "trakehner" horse-wrangler 



EMPEROR WILLIAM'S STUD-FARM AND FOREST 205 

"We offer a prize," answered the major, "to 
those whose horses show the most confiding dis- 
position at the approach of man. Whenever I 
enter the large spaces under roof where they are 
gathered for the night, if I discover the least shy- 
ness or unfriendliness on the part of the colts, it 
is a sign that the herdsmen have acted contrary 
to their duty." 

Every spring, usually about May, the four-year- 
olds are distributed amongst the auxiliary or sec- 
ondary stud-farms of Prussia, likewise for breed- 
ing purposes, so that with the exception of the 
stallions and brood-mares all the good blood here 
is disposed of when it is four years old. There 
is a very formidable committee that determines 
what horses are to be reserved for military breed- 
ing purposes at the other stations and what shall 
be sold at auction, an event which draws to Tra- 
kehnen buyers from every country of the globe, 
anxious to secure specimens of this excellent 
breed of horse. It is from this estate that the 
emperor draws the horses which he uses for pri- 
vate purposes in his carriages and for the saddle. 

By a special arrangement, made in 1848, the 
Prussian crown made these estates a present to 
the government, on condition that each year the 
king should be allowed to select thirty horses 
for private use, and naturally those selected are 
apt to be the best. A beautiful little saddle- 
horse was being trained for the emperor's eldest 



206 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

son during our visit, as well-built an animal as 
one could wish, and as gentle as a baby. The 
royal stables of Prussia are filled almost exclu- 
sively with black horses for driving purposes, al- 
though for riding the emperor does not confine 
himself to any particular color. In addition to 
the breeding animals which are sent from here 
to the various stud-farms of the government in 
other parts of Prussia, the government is very 
wise and generous in encouraging horse-breeding 
in the neighborhood by every possible means. 
The farmers are permitted the use of government 
stallions of excellent pedigree at a remarkably 
low figure — $5 was, I believe, the current price 
last year. 

The secret of Trakehnen's fame as a horse- 
breeding place, according to our host, is the fact 
that it is irrigated in every direction in such a 
manner that the grass is rich and sweet to an 
extraordinary extent. The soil, too, is most fa- 
vorable — deep and spongy. When it was origi- 
nally selected for this purpose it was nothing 
better than a vast swamp over which the moose 
roamed wild, as he still roams in a circumscribed 
section of the Baltic shores near the mouth of 
the Memel River. The father of Frederick the 
Great was a capital farmer, and had a good eye 
for horses as well. He converted this swamp 
into the richest pasture-land of Germany, where 
even to-day one cannot dig two feet without 




BRINGING OUT A STALLION 



EMPEROR WILLIAM S ST^JD-FARM AND FOREST 209 

striking water. In winter the meadows are 
flooded, and only the most careful irrigation 
preserves them in good condition for the balance 
of the year. There are no fences anywhere upon 
the estate, which stretches about nine miles in 
one direction and three or four in the other, and 
were the horses less docile than they are, it 
would seem an easy thing for them to get lost 
many times in the year. 

Major von Frankenberg has an enormous ad- 
miration for this particular horse, and as he goes 
to England every year for the purpose of select- 
ing thorough-breds, and has visited the stud- 
farms of nearly every country in the world, it is 
fair to conclude that his feelings are not the re- 
sult of bias. 

" But," said he, " I insist on one indispensable 
condition — our horse must not be used until he 
is six years old. He must be allowed to get his 
growth and seasoning before using. We made a 
great mistake in 1870 in permitting many young 
horses, as young as four years of age, to come 
into the army. They nearly all broke down, 
and in the long-run were a source of great loss 
to us — far beyond their cost. With proper food 
and treatment, however, I will back him against 
any horse I know." 

The major gave us many illustrations of what 
the Trakehner has done in his experience ; not 
such rides as Austrian and German officers per- 



2IO THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

formed in October of 1892, but work of practical 
value. For instance, in the campaign against 
France of 1870 and 1871, he led his regiment of 
hussars throughout the months of January, Feb- 
ruary, and March, over a country covered with 
ice and snow, at the rate of thirty-five English 
miles a day. 

At the same time the major was careful to 
point out what United States cavalry officers can 
appreciate more than those of any other army, 
that these are not horses that can be turned out 
to take care of themselves, like the Indian's mus- 
tang or the rough Cossack pony of the steppes. 

All the young horses are carefully rubbed clean 
and inspected every day, the brush and curry- 
comb being used in cleaning. During this proc- 
ess the young colts are tied, but when three or 
four years old they stand quietly enough and 
enjoy it. In order to insure docility on the part 
of these animals it is made a rule that each day 
the colts are to be stroked with the hand, their 
feet raised — in other words, treated in such a 
way as to make them familiar with their future 
masters. 

It would seem as though the rich, succulent 
grass produced by the pastures would be enough 
food for these young animals, but the major said 
that they did better when they received two por- 
tions of oats a day, once in the morning and 
again at noon, but never at night. 



f 
if- 







B '.'■.-"": 



V 



EMPEROR WILLIAMS STUD-FARM AND FOREST 213 

One evening the major took us to see the 
horses called home from the pasture. They 
came in troops of hundreds, and gathered in 
large enclosures facing the stables, or rather the 
large spaces in which they all spent the night in 
common, in groups of one hundred or less. These 
paddocks were formed by planting railway sleep- 
ers on end at short intervals, connected by gas- 
pipes — a very simple and economical arrange- 
ment. Here the young horses are exercised in 
the winter when it would-be unsuitable to let 
them out in the snow. They go round and 
round in a ring under the eye of the groom. 

On the occasion of our visit I noticed that the 
main body divided itself according to color — the 
blacks going to one corner, the browns to anoth- 
er, the bays to a third ; of whites or grays I saw 
no specimens. Here and there would be one 
who had mistaken his corner, or was seeking for- 
bidden company out of deviltry. The keeper 
had no difficulty in bringing him to his right 
senses, however, by simply calling his name and 
waving his hand in the direction of the corner to 
which he belonged. The colt thus addressed in- 
variably leaped out from the corner in which he 
was an intruder, and galloped straight to the 
corner whose color matched his. This we saw 
done many times over, and it never failed. . . . 

Neither Remington nor I had intended to tax 
the hospitality of our kindly host more than a 



2 14 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

day, but we were gladly persuaded to prolong 
our stay, which gave us an opportunity to visit 
the vast and almost primeval forests to which 
the Emperor of Germany retires in order to hunt 
the wild deer and boar. A victoria was placed 
at our disposal by the major, and in this luxuri- 
ous vehicle we sat while a pair of black Tra- 
kehner mares carried us swiftly, and without in- 
terruption, over the twenty miles of country road 
that separated us from the hunting- lodge of 
Rominten. It was a rolling open country across 
which we drove, until we came upon the edges 
of sombre woods. The cultivation was on all 
sides of a high grade, and in striking contrast 
to what prevails across the border, only about 
five or ten miles distant. There were few vil- 
lages, but their inhabitants were clean and tidily 
dressed. Had it not been a day of sunshine, 
made more beautiful by the effect of fleecy 
clouds studding here and there the blue heav- 
ens, in an atmosphere freshened by the breeze 
following a day of rain, with a road under us 
neither dusty nor muddy, although towards the 
latter part of it it was a mere cart-track through 
a somewhat sandy soil, I fear that we might have 
termed our twenty miles rather desolate travel- 
ling. We saw some fine specimens of the em- 
peror's wild-boar and big red deer, that bounded 
into the thicket as we approached, for these ani- 
mals are not as tame as those in English parks, 



EMPEROR WILLIAM'S STUD-FARM AND FOREST 217 

being rarely disturbed. At one point our driver 
stopped to let us get out and see how near we 
could come to a herd that appeared to be about 
a thousand yards off. We stalked so close that 
Remington decided emphatically that he would 
have bagged half a dozen had he been allowed 
to try his hand at it. As it was, however, he did 
something better by making some sketches from 
behind a fallen tree. We drove a long distance, 
after this, amidst magnificent trees, mostly ever- 
greens, although oak and poplar appeared here 
and there. The forest, which includes about 
fifty square miles, is watered by some excellent 
streams, stocked with a variety of fish, chief of 
all the trout, although pike, perch, carp, Scar- 
dinioiis erythroplithalmiis, Carassius vulgaris, and 
many others of excellent quality are also abun- 
dant. Half a dozen houses compose all there is 
of the village here, whose inhabitants are princi- 
pally occupied in work about the forest. We 
passed through the village, over a bridge, and up 
a hill, on the top of which stood the house which 
the emperor is building as his hunting -lodge. 
The dark evergreen forest closes it in at the 
rear, and in many respects it suggests a summer 
residence in the Adirondack Mountains. There 
were several officials in the house at the time, 
on various errands, the most important to us 
being the forester. We asked permission to 
enter and take a look at the rooms, but were 



!l8 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

politely informed, with apparent regret, that this 
whs cont rary to their orders. The German court 
was, however, at Potsdam, and, as there was a 
telegraph office near by, we wired to the capital 
asking pea-mission of the emperor to visit his 
place lure. 'The postmaster and chief of the 
telegraph department we found perched on the 
ridge pole of his thatched roof making some re- 
pairs, lie i. nne down cheerfully from the roof, 
sent oil our message for US, and acceded to our 
desire thai he should harness up his ponies to a 

farm wagon and point out to us some interest- 
ing features of the wilderness. We had a rather 

humpy ride of it, for our way led over rocks and 
stumps, zigzagging in and out among the big 
tires without reference to any road <>r path. He 
was .1 pretty old man, this forester, bent by rheu- 
matism as well as years, but withal of a commu- 
nicative and kindly disposition. As the emper 
or's house here is so near the Russian frontier, 
it naturally occurred to Remington that a party 
of enterprising Muscovite cowboys could, with- 
out difficulty, on some moonlight night, jump 

this ranch, so to speak, and tarry off the: emper- 
or a hostage to St. Petersburg, without any more 
difficulty than cutting the telegraph wires lead- 
ing from Rominten to the main line, some twenty 
or thirty miles away. 

The old forester took us to points where we 
had glimpses of little lakes and streams and 







I'KASANTS NKAK KOMINTKN 



EMPEROR WILLIAMS STUD- FARM AND FOREST 22 1 

patches of meadow, surrounded by wilderness as 
perfect as anything in Colorado, and amused us 
until it was time to think of our noonday din- 
ner with a running commentary upon his life 
at Rominten. 

His greatest hardship used to be protecting 
the forest from poachers. He told us that the 
last head game-keeper here had been shot by a 
poacher, but remarked, by way of a consoling 
foot-note, that his successor managed to kill two 
poachers at one shot. It would seem as though 
next to impossible to prevent poaching in such 
a vast forest as this, yet he assured me that with 
proper organization they had succeeded in al- 
most suppressing this nuisance. The staff of 
foresters numbers from forty to fifty men, whose 
principal occupation is the patrolling of the 
woods, according to preconcerted arrangement, 
studying trees and plants, and noting everything 
that affects the welfare of the beasts which pro- 
vide sport for the emperor and his guests. 

It is only since 1890 that the emperor has 
taken a fancy to this hunting-ground, and, until 
he built the hunting-lodge for whose inspection 
we had sought permission, he lived at the little 
inn where we had ordered dinner, and slept in 
the very room from the window of which Rem- 
ington made a sketch of the building. The place 
appeals strongly to the emperor, because it is so 
thoroughly natural and wild, in refreshing con- 



222 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

trast to many royal parks, where the grass ap- 
pears to be trimmed by a lawn-mower, and every 

tree has, so to speak, 
^^rttt its hair brushed every 

"y^*^T morning. William II., 

too, is the first mon- 
arch of Europe who 
has appreciated the val- 
ue of American meth- 
ods of travel, and has 
so organized his train 
of cars that he can 
move from one end of 
his empire to the other 
not only without per- 
sonal fatigue, but un- 
der conditions that en- 
able him to transact 
state business as satis- 
|^ factorily as if he were 

Nff' S>- in his working -room 

\ /x at Potsdam or Berlin. 

% i**- '4 & The Chicago Vestibule 

Limited finds its coun- 
^-W^^ 1 '™^^ terpart in the German 
"**" imperial train, which 
german peasant, east Prussia may be said to have 

doubled the capacity 
for work of a monarch mainly criticised because 
of his superabundant energy. People who find 




EMPEROR WILLIAMS STUD-FARM AND FOREST 223 

fault with the emperor because, as they say, he 
is perpetually rushing from one corner of Europe 
to the other, forget that it is not he who does the 
rushing, but the train of cars under him. His life, 
meanwhile, is as placid and methodical as one 
could wish, but where his grandfather was satis- 
fied to know a man through a written report, 
William II. prefers to see that man face to face. 

But this is digression. The old forester illus- 
trated the formerly neglected condition of this 
forest by telling us that thirty years ago there 
were not more than fifteen head of deer in the 
whole chase, thanks to neglect and poaching ; 
to-day it is estimated that there are at least one 
thousand, thanks for which are mainly due to 
the excellent administration of the late forester 
who was shot by the poacher. Two months be- 
fore we visited the place wild-boar had been in- 
troduced, and already four young ones had been 
born on the estate. This will prove an additional 
attraction for the future, as the wild-boar is no- 
toriously one of the gamiest of animals. There 
are some moose here as well, differing scarcely at 
all from those of New Brunswick and Maine, but 
it is doubtful whether this animal will survive. 
The sport most relished here is the chase after 
the big red deer, of which about one hundred 
and fifty are shot annually. At different points 
in the forest we came upon racks at which the 
deer feed during severe winters, when food has to 







be provided for them, but they offered nothing 
in their structure to call for* particular comment. 
Here, as in our first approach to the house, we 
were struck by the diversity and fine growth of 
the oak, beech, ash, elm, chestnut, linden, and 
evergreen trees about us. Also by the great di- 
versity in the surface of the ground, in marked 



emperor William's stud farm and forest 225 

contrast to the rest of the great Prussian plain. 
There were steep little hills, beautiful gorges, 
and, travelling as we did, it appeared as though 
we were in a hilly country, with streams in every 
valley, the slopes of which had been laid out 
with consummate art to simulate the Adiron- 
dacks. 

Wolves, according to our worthy forester, are 
a great nuisance, and do a vast amount of mis- 
chief. Last year the keepers shot a most savage 
beast, who did an extraordinary amount of injury 
to the other animals. It seemed impossible to 
find him until the following plan was adopted : 
A wide circle was made about the spot in which 
they knew he must have his hiding-place ; this 
line was marked off by twigs planted in the 
ground at short intervals. Packthread was then 
drawn from twig to twig, connecting the whole 
circle excepting at one point, where an opening 
was left, near which the hunters stationed them- 
selves. At intervals of ten feet red and yellow 
bits of rag were hung upon this line, for it was 
discovered that a wolf will not cross an impedi- 
ment of this nature, which reminds one of the 
superstitious feeling the chicken is said to have 
in regard to crossing a chalk -line. The wolf 
made his appearance in due course of time, and 
went from rag to rag in the hope of finding a 
way out. When he did so, however, it was to 
fall into the hands of his avengers, who shot him 



2 26 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

on the 15th day of November, 1891. He was 
stuffed, and is now scowling, through glass eyes 
only, in one of the corners of the hunting-lodge 
■ — a fine-looking beast, whose acquaintance, how- 
ever, I should not like to have made under any 
other circumstances. 

Our dinner was quite a festive affair, for in the 
midst of this wilderness had congregated at one 
and the same time not only the forester and the 
major-domo of the palace, but a high economic 
functionary from Berlin, who was here to make 
an inspection of the emperor's property. All 
three received us in the spirit of fellowship, 
caused perhaps by the fact that on returning to 
the inn we found a dispatch from the Lord 
Chamberlain at Potsdam, informing us that the 
emperor had given us the permission we desired. 
It was a permission which we had had little rea- 
son to anticipate, because an inventory of the 
place was being made, the furniture was in a 
somewhat confused state, and clerks were at 
work on the premises. 

This hunting-lodge of the emperor's is a cross 
between the typical Swiss chalet and an Ameri- 
can log house ; there is a striking amount of 
quaint Norwegian carving about it, and the raf- 
ters of the roof come to a point in the shape of 
grinning dragons' heads — a feature of Scandina- 
vian architecture I had noticed at many points 
in Norway. The emperor took a great fancy to 



EMPEROR WILLIAM S STUD-FARM AND FOREST 229 

the simplicity and strength characterizing Nor- 
wegian buildings on his many journeys along 
that coast, and had a dozen Norwegian builders 
come down on purpose from Christiania in order 
to erect this house for him. It is, of course, un- 
painted, and finished in the most severe style, as 
befits the purpose for which it was originally 
designed. Inside, the walls and ceilings are all 
of the natural logs, finished off roughly and 
stained. The ceilings are low, the rooms small, 
but every corner is pervaded with coziness. The 
large assembly or living room looks down a se- 
ries of rustic terraces to the little valley, where 
the trout stream runs from the Russian frontier 
to the Baltic. At one end of this large room is 
a great double fireplace, about which a large 
family can gather in the evening for the pur- 
pose of spinning hunting-yarns or telling ghost- 
stories. It is an exact counterpart of the fire- 
place in many a Norwegian house I have seen, 
reproduced here with minute fidelity. From 
the ceiling hangs an elaborate chandelier con- 
sisting entirely of antlers, so arranged as to form 
innumerable holders for candles. 

The emperor strongly dislikes anything in the 
nature of guards when he is on his hunting ex- 
peditions, although half a dozen country police- 
men do duty here when the emperor is present. 
On his first arrival they were drawn up in line to 
salute him, but he ordered that it should not 



230 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

happen again, and now they are carefully kept 
out of sight. He is a man so indifferent to dan- 
ger or personal safety that the mere idea of hav- 
ing officials watching on his account is in the 
highest degree distasteful. The furniture of the 
rooms at Rominten was in harmony with the sim- 
plicity of the walls — hard -wood, strongly made, 
and merely stained, so as to disclose the nat- 
ural grain, which is, after all, the greatest charm 
about any furniture. On the walls hung many 
pictures of hunting scenes, notably the magnifi- 
cent studies of Landseer. Amongst the pictures 
our guides pointed out two which they said had 
been done by the emperor himself. I suspected 
the authorship at the time, because they were 
colored copies of notable paintings, and I knew 
that the emperor preferred to do something 
more original than merely copy the work of an- 
other. Of course I did not mention my doubts 
to these officials, but on complimenting the em- 
peror in regard to them, shortly afterwards, he 
emphatically disclaimed their authorship, and 
gave me the name of the friend who had copied 
them. However, it is now a tradition in the 
palace of Rominten that these two pictures were 
done by the emperor, and there is little doubt 
that successive generations of care-takers will re- 
ceive this tradition, and spread the error amongst 
all those who visit that interesting house. We 
may expect before long to see these works re- 





A FORESTER 



emperor William's stud-farm and forest 233 

produced in some. magazine as evidence of the 
emperor's taste as an artist. He is, it is true, 
clever with his pencil, but in a different and more 
important way than is suggested by his alleged 
works at his hunting-box. 

His study is a room of equal simplicity with 
the others, so arranged that should he arrive at 
an hour's notice he would find it ready for work. 
On the table in front of him stands a little 
framed photograph of his wife. There is scarce- 
ly more than room enough in the apartment 
for the large table which he always requires for 
the purpose of spreading out maps and plans. 
The room is a literary workshop, and no more. 
Amongst the ornaments, however, I noticed an 
excellent photograph of the Prince of Wales, his 
uncle, looking very slim and graceful in the uni- 
form of a Prussian hussar. 

Naturally, the most interesting points about 
the place were the many antlers fastened to the 
wall as trophies of the chase. The forester told 
us that hunting here was not such an easy matter 
as one might suppose ; that they often went six 
days without finding any game, although on the 
very next day they might kill two. He thought 
a fair average would be to bag one deer in every 
four days. The antlers which appeared to be 
the most numerous belonged to the Damhirsch 
or Damwildpret ; they resemble the big red deer 
of Europe, but have at the same time a sug- 



234 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

gestion of the moose in the shovel character of 
part of their horns. We were shown the hoof of 
one of these animals, which I measured and 
found to be thirteen centimetres in breadth, or 
about four and a half inches. As I said before, 
the moose is dying out, but an effort is being 
made to cross it with Norwegian in the hope of 
reviving the breed. 

The emperor, as is well known,, is a capital 
shot, in spite of the fact that he has little more 
than one arm to do his work with. His rifle is 
notable in an exceeding length of stock, by 
which he is able to shoot with his right hand 
alone. By long practice and natural aptitude he 
has succeeded in making one almost forget that 
his left arm is very weak. As a matter of detail, 
the sportsman may care to know that the favor- 
ite rifle for deer in this place is thirteen mil- 
limetres calibre, with which eight grammes of 
powder are used. The trophies that here adorn 
the walls have a value far above those which 
decorate the hunting- lodges of most princes, 
who, when they go out shooting, stand in a fa- 
vored spot and allow the game to be driven by 
them, much as one would a drove of sheep or 
cows. The game here has to be legitimately 
hunted, and it is this very difficulty in securing 
a shot that makes Rominten, in the eyes of the 
emperor, a favorite shooting-ground. . 

The characteristic Norwegian decoration of 







A STALLION 



the hunting-lodge is carried out at other points 
of the forest, notably a bridge which we crossed 
on our forenoon's journey with the venerable 
postmaster - forester and his two shaggy Polish 
ponies. The bridge was of rough-hewn logs rest- 
ing upon two series of piles, protected up-stream 
against descending masses of ice, exactly as in 
the rapid torrents of Norway, Over the bridge 
is an arch, made by two beams crossing, at each 
end of which is carved the same draconical de- 
sign characterizing the gables of the hunting- 



236 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

lodge. This bridge is interesting from the fact 
that it was built in four days by eighty-five men 
of the pioneer corps, who marched to this point 
for this purpose, did their work, and returned. 

We parted from Rominten with many regrets, 
particularly from the rheumatic old forester who 
had done so much to make our day brimful of 
pleasant memories of a glorious forest and a 
unique race of woodcraftsmen. 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 

THE sight of my friend Alsenstorm was very 
cheering to me, for it was three o'clock in 
the morning ; the train from St. Petersburg had 
banged me about since the evening before. I was 
at a small station on the line to Moscow ; from 
the platform I could detect nothing but gloomy 
infinities of forest and swamp. No one about 
the place spoke French, English, or German ; my 
passport was in the possession of the police of 
the capital ; I had slipped away without permis- 
sion, and had not my friend finally appeared, I 
should have been in awkward plight. 

Alsenstorm is of an ancient Scandinavian stock 
that has been conspicuous in Russian history since 
the days of Gustavus Adolphus. He had been 
educated in Moscow ; had inherited vast estates 
near this station ; I had made his acquaintance, 
no matter where, and had run down to get a 
glimpse of him and his farming. 

The trap that conveyed him, or rather that 
floundered through the mud under him, was the 
common peasant cart that is found, in different 
degrees of modification, from Holland to Siberia, 



.38 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

and from the Baltic to the Danube or the Cau- 
casus. With a little increase in expenditure it 
develops into a gentleman's carriage, though in 
this case it was so heavily incrusted with thick 
black mud that I could hardly tell whether the 
wheels had spokes. The heavily bearded peas- 
ant who drove sat on a narrow board in front, 
his feet resting outside the wagon. At the cen- 
tre was a cushioned bench for two passengers, 
and behind was ample room for luggage. 

Three tough little native mustangs were hitched 
abreast to this vehicle. They showed much of 
the quickness that characterizes horses accus- 
tomed to pick their own way, and dodged about 
among the mud-holes as cleverly as our Western 
ones do. 

Alsenstorm is the type of a man that Russia 
needs to-day more than she ever did before, but 
which she is persecuting with blind desperation. 
He is a blue-eyed, light-haired, broad-shouldered, 
inquiring, enterprising giant. He is a sports- 
man, and stood before me with his trousers in- 
side a pair of long boots ; a much be-pocketed 
blouse, belted at the waist ; a cartridge-belt over 
his shoulder ; a sporting-rifle in his hand ; a loose 
gray military cloak open about his shoulders ; a 
gray felt hat suggestive of our cowboy. The 
twinkle of his eye, the warm grasp of his hand, 
the firm way in which he stands squarely on both 
soles at once, all his attributes, are attractive to 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 239 

me, and I marvelled that he should live in such 
a neighborhood. 

" Glad to see you," said he, in excellent Eng- 
lish. " Here is a caviare sandwich, and here a 
flask of Madeira. Put them inside of you im- 
mediately, for we have a long drive before break- 
fast." 

I obeyed. 

Alsenstorm read my thoughts as we thumped 
and bumped through the mud. From my inter- 
course with him in another country I had been 
led to expect something better in the way of an 
estate than what he was inflicting upon me now. 
There was an awkward silence. He then said to 
me : 

" Since living here, I have become charitable 
to suicides — I become desperate with the desire 
to talk honestly and freely." He looked at me 
a moment with pathetic earnestness, then, in the 
manner of a man that determines upon a great 
risk, he said : " I think you are safe. Listen. 

" My family is Russian, if two centuries on 
Russian soil can make it such. Our name has 
never been absent from the government list of 
military or civil servants of the czar — our family 
has served the czar with loyalty. But since the 
present rule we have become ' suspect,' because 
our blood is not Slav, our religion is not Greek. 
My blood remains Scandinavian, my religion is 
Protestant, and until I renounce my creed I shall 



240 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

continue to be regarded by the priests, the peas- 
ants, and the police as one incapable of genuine 
loyalty to Russian ideas. 

" While studying at Moscow I knew that I 
should inherit the vast landed estate which con- 
stitutes all our wealth to-day. For the purpose 
of fitting myself to take charge of this property 
J went abroad and studied in Germany the best 
methods of irrigation, cattle-breeding, engineer- 
ing, bridge- building, etc. I was fired with the 
ambition of making my estate a centre of infor- 
mation for the surrounding villages. I adored 
the czar who had freed the serfs ; I looked upon 
the Russian peasant as a regenerating force, 
the unspoiled, generous, progressive element that 
would take advantage of its liberty, would build 
primary schools, would lift itself into power, and 
act as a wholesome check upon official corrup- 
tion and centralized tyranny. 

" You see, I knew my peasant only from nov- 
els, as some philanthropic Americans knew the 
negro before your great Civil War. I came to 
my great estate full of zeal for the rights of man, 
the dignity of labor. I was determined to show 
my Russian neighbors that the emancipated serf 
becomes a self-respecting farmer if treated with 
consideration. 

"Accordingly, my first act was to call the 
elders of the peasants together, and to tell them 
that henceforward they were to be treated as 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 241 

free men, and that the last vestige of serfdom 
was to be abolished. They appeared apathetic, 
but I believed it to be for their good, and they 
consented. 

"In my father's time, even after 1 86 1, when 
serfdom was abolished, the peasants all continued 
their old relations, preferring to work on shares 
rather than pay rent. With my advanced no- 
tions of liberty, this smacked of medievalism ; I 
wished to pay in money for the day's work of a 
free man. Consequently, the peasants bought 
themselves loose. Under the Emancipation Law 
they received a certain amount of land to work 
on their own account ; the purchase price was 
advanced to them by government, and was to 
be repaid out of increased taxes. I received 
from the state a lump sum for my land, and 
this money I promptly applied to improvements. 
Bridges and roads were repaired ; I started a 
brick factory, so that I might have better ma- 
terial for my proposed new buildings ; the out- 
look was splendid ; and the crowning happiness 
was in the thought that henceforth I was to 
deal, not with serfs, but honest and industrious 
freemen. 

" Early in the spring I had more laborers than 
I needed, but as the year wore on towards har- 
vest they became lazy, and some of them disap- 
peared. This did not worry me, for I was confi- 
dent that the great majority were bound to me 



■ I .' THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR and KAISER 

in gral ii ude and loyalty. ( )ne fine day, however, 
I was asked to step outside, that the peasants 
wished to speak- with me. 1 came to the door 
and said, in my most friendly manner: 'Well, 
children, what is up?' 'They behaved respect- 
fully, but I noticed thai they had a dogged ap- 
pearance. ' Please, your honor,' said a black- 
bearded one, who acted as spokesman, ' we can'1 

work any longer at the present rate; the peas- 
ants twenty versts from here are getting twice 

as much, and we must have the same.' 

" In snch a ease my sense of justice spoke for 
the peasants. The story they told was a lie, hut 
J did not know it .it the time, and in order to 
show them that they had in me the right kind 
of an employer, I answered without he, it. it ion : 

" ' Certainly, children ; you shall have as good 

Wages, and I hope yon will now work twice as 

hard.' 

'"That we shall!' shouted they, earnestly ; but 

they did not move. 

"'Anything more you would like?' asked J, 
with some irritation; 

'.'Then the long peasant with the black beard 
spoke for the crowd. 'We eannol go to work 
unless you pay us hall the wages in advance.' 

"' Nonsense 1' said I. 'You will only go to the 

rum shop with it.' 

" But they doggedly insisted. I saw my beau- 
tiful fields ready for harvest, and recognized the 



on A RUSSIAN FARM 243 

painful dilemma in which I was placed either 

pay these dishonest peasants or risk my whole 
crop. So I paid them the stipulated half, and 
they went off to work' full of zealous promises. 

"A short time after this I rode out to the 
fields and could not see a single harvester. The 
overseer came to me wringing his hands: 

" ' My God, my God !' he said ; the scoundrels 
heard of a church festival three hours from here ; 
they have all gone; I can get 110 one to take 
their place.' 

" I saw that nothing could be done. They 
had broken their contract, and the law allowed 
me to sue them. But that would not save: my 
crops! I returned to the house with shaking 
convictions regarding the value of 'free labor,' 
and waited a few days until they returned and 
had recovered from their prolonged spree. 

" The next time I. met my peasants they were 
sitting in a ditch, passing a brandy-bottle from 
mouth to mouth. With difficulty they found 
their feet. Of course I gave them a strong lect- 
ure on their dishonesty, and threatened them 
with the legal Consequences of their breach of 
contract. This lecture made: not the slightest 
impression ; but when 1 was done, the long black- 
bearded spokesman again came forward, and told 
me that it was impossible for them to do any 
work unless I paid them the other half of their 
wa^es in advance. At this I was furious, and 



244 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

rated them soundly ; they listened good-natured- 
ly, but, like children, repeated their request — 
finally saying, flatly, that it was impossible for 
them to go on with the harvest unless they had 
their money in advance. 

" I was in their power ; there was no labor to be 
had excepting the former serfs ; my fine crops 
were lost unless I could have them immediately 
harvested. So I once more yielded. They re- 
ceived now their full pay in advance, and for a 
couple of days worked like happy children. On 
the third day, however, a large share of them 
disappeared, and by the end of the week I had 
not a single one. Half of my crop was left rot- 
ting in the field, to be finally buried by the 
snow. 

" Meanwhile I noticed from time to time that 
planks and beams were missing from my bridges. 
At first I sought to replace them ; but finally 
gave the matter up, and we now plash through 
the streams as best we can. The peasants stole 
the wood for fires rather than bother to cut it for 
themselves, and had not the slightest interest in 
keeping the highways open. I tried to catch the 
thieves, but the peasants hold together like a 
secret society, and all my efforts failed. I did 
learn, however, that the peasants who had taken 
my money and broken their contracts were not 
far off ; so I had the spokesman arrested for the 
sake of an example, and he was locked up for 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 

five days — five happy days to him, for they we 
passed in complete idleness. 

" A week after this came a grain-dealer from 
Moscow, and I signed a contract for the little 
crop I had harvested at a fairly good rate. The 
grain was to be delivered on sleds in two days, 
and I figured that with the proceeds of this grain 
I should close the year with only a small loss. 
As I was figuring, the overseer burst into the 
room with a shout : 

" ' The barns are on fire !' 

" ' It cannot be,' I said, quietly; 'you are mis- 
taken.' 

" But I was soon convinced. The guilty one 
was never brought to trial ; no one could be found 
who knew anything about it. But in the vil- 
lages every man, woman, and child was telling 
how the long black-bearded spokesman had taken 
his revenge." 

The story of Alsenstorm I have told because 
it is a common one all over Northern and Central 
Russia, and because it explains the " down-at- 
the-heel " condition of agriculture in the czar's 
dominions. Had it not been pointed out to me, 
and explained by competent authority, I should 
still have suspected that something was very rot- 
ten about a system that produced millions of 
peasants who lived like animals — not animals of 
much value either, for from the Black Sea to the 
Gulf of Finland, whether in Bessarabia or Kieff, 



.IE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

.ovno or Novgorod, Volynicn or Poland, where- 
ever I have seen a well-thatched hut, a well-fed 
cow, a well-dressed mother, or a well-made road, 
I have usually had to learn that it was owing to 
exceptional circumstances, or that it was a Ger- 
man or " Kurland " colony. 

In Russia nothing is done without violence 
and police assistance. Nothing develops, noth- 
ing ripens, nothing grows from little beginnings. 
When the czar wanted nobles, he ordered them 
as he would order a regiment ; the social grades 
of Russia have been regulated by imperial edicts 
and with no reference to grades above or grades 
below. The noble was placed above the serf, 
and so long as the noble held a knout in his 
hand the serf worked fairly well. Thirty years 
ago, however, the czar took the knout out of the 
noble's hand, and told the serf he could do as 
he pleased. Since that day the condition of the 
landed proprietor has become steadily worse ; but, 
what is more to the point, the condition of the 
peasant has not improved. In one county of 
the province of Moscow, said my friend, out of 
208 estates, 188 have been allowed to go to rack 
and ruin — no cow, no horse, no workmen to be 
seen. In the same province, out of 298 estates, 
there are only eighteen on which the owners live 
the greater part of the year. If this is the case 
in a province holding the second city of the em- 
pire, what can the state of things be in other and 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 247 

less -favored parts? The Russian government 
gives us no reliable figures from which an econo- 
mist can draw exact conclusions ; but Alsenstorm, 
who knows what he says, tells me that the state 
of agriculture in Russia is deplorable, that Mos- 
cow is typical of the whole country, and that the 
present condition of things shows no sign of im- 
provement. To understand Russia, one must go 
into the hut of the peasant, exactly as one must 
know the cabin of the negro before discussing poli- 
tics south of Mason and Dixon's line. 

The Russian peasant is worth a diagnosis, for 
his class represents about nine-tenths of his vast 
country. Profoundly ignorant and helpless — for 
reading, writing, and arithmetic are occult sci- 
ences to him — he must always lean up against 
some one else. He knows only what he is told 
by his priest and equally shallow neighbors, and 
is infinitely credulous and superstitious. He 
will believe any smooth-tongued scoundrel who 
promises him something nice, but is very suspi- 
cious of an educated person who encourages him 
to work and lay aside. Work of any kind he dis- 
likes, particularly if it requires consecutive energy ; 
and agriculture is the kind of work he likes least 
— his taste is more for trafficking. He has no 
love for the soil on which he has been raised, is 
restless, fond of change. His main pleasure is 
gossip in the tavern over a glass of brandy. He 
is without moral character, addicted to petty 



248 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

thieving, lies fluently, has no aversion to begging, 
and is constantly expecting that some happy ac- 
cident will better his fortunes. 

This is the man to whom the future of Russia 
was intrusted thirty years ago, and history sadly 
confirms my friend Alsenstorm in stating that 
the peasant of to-day is, if anything, more devoid 
of moral character, more shiftless, more drunken, 
more dishonest, more ragged even than in 1861. 
The record of elementary education in Russia 
proves that the peasant cares little for the means 
of raising himself. He has exchanged masters 
and made a bad bargain. To-day he is the slave 
of the man who has advanced him a little money 
on his crop or his cattle; of the tax-gatherer; 
and of the village community. The peasant to- 
day is a pauper; he is constantly in debt, and 
hounded by creditors more merciless than the 
most brutal of his former masters. He has not 
the fuel to warm his house in winter, he huddles 
his whole family and himself on to the stove at 
night, and when that does not keep warm he fills 
his hut with cattle to raise the temperature. 
His life is as hopeless as that of the dumb brutes 
he consorts with, and the vodka he drinks gives 
to him the only paradise he is capable of grasp- 
ing. 

The serfs worked because they were flogged if 
they did not. Many philanthropists believed 
they would work harder as free men than as 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 249 

slaves. The knout was abolished ; but they 
stopped working. As serfs the master was bound 
to see that they had good houses, that they were 
well clad, that they had proper medical attend- 
ance. He punished the idlers, but he had a di- 
rect interest in having on his estate only the 
strong and healthy. Now the sickly peasants rot 
in their cabins, and no one cares. The harvest 
fails, and no granaries have been filled. There is 
no one to insist upon rational methods of agri- 
culture, and consequently the soil is exhausted, 
and short-sighted selfishness plays havoc on all 
sides. The landed proprietor, on the other hand, 
is violently deprived of labor he has counted on 
in the past, he is left with a large tract of land 
surrounded by peasants, who lay siege to him as 
to a declared enemy. The landed proprietor is 
regarded as one whom every peasant can rob 
without offending the moral sense of his class, 
for so great is the gulf between the late serfs 
and their land-owners that as yet every attempt 
to identify their interests has failed. The late 
master, finding his life intolerable in the country, 
sells his land to estate agents, or disposes of it in 
any way he can, and, wherever possible, lives in 
town, or solicits some small salaried post. In 
this way the only people who have the means and 
the intelligence to raise agriculture are gradually 
disappearing from Russian country life, as they 
have from Ireland, as they have from the South- 



250 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

ern States. Their places are taken by shrewd 
agents, who have no interest but to line their 
own pockets by squeezing what they can out of 
the estate and the peasantry round about. 

The Russian nobleman never was the ideal 
farmer, any more than the Russian peasant can 
be called a good farm-hand. Both have, how- 
ever, been the victims of such legislation as 
would probably have harmed the agriculture of 
any country. 

If a German devil had stalked through Russia 
and scratched his head for the purpose of de- 
vising the greatest mischief that could be done 
her, I fancy he would have hit upon the present 
system of peasant community. The czar who 
signed this wicked law meant to do good, but he 
gave another illustration of the great danger that 
governments run when they permit the caprice 
of a philanthropist to override all practical ex- 
perience of industrial and social development. 

The Russian peasant of to-day is something of 
a Communist or Socialist. He is one of a com- 
munity owning land in common. In most local 
matters affecting the little village of one or two 
hundred souls he has a voice, and the govern- 
ment that affects him most nearly is that of the 
elders whom he has helped to put in power. 
Out of the common land he receives a share 
proportionate to the size of his family, and this 
share he is supposed to cultivate with public- 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 



spirited zeal. Every few years the elders declare 
a new partition of land, owing to changes in the 
community caused by deaths, marriages, births, or 
emigration to other parts of the country. This 
repartition of land sounds very just, and even 
practical, to one who has never seen the peasant. 
As a matter of fact, it is the one feature of mod- 
ern Russia that makes improvement impossible ; 
for is it likely that you or I would work hard 
upon a piece of land if next year it were to pass 
out of our control? Is it reasonable to suppose 
that an ignorant peasant is going to carefully 
manure a patch the benefit of which is to be 
reaped by his neighbor? In the Russian village 
system the peasant who has done his work well 
often finds that he has to exchange his field for 
the neglected one of a neighboring drunkard. 
Little by little the energy of the most public- 
spirited evaporates, and each seeks to get what 
he can from the soil with the least possible ex- 
penditure of work. In the days of serfdom there 
was a master who looked to it that the fields 
were properly tilled and the soil not exhausted. 
To-day there is no such check upon the peasant's 
idleness. 

Whoever reads this no doubt says to himself; 
" But why does not the peasant shake himself free 
from this stupid community, and buy land and 
raise himself to the position of an independent 
farmer?" 



252 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

Oddly enough, not only docs the peasant not 
do this, but he docs not even show the desire to 
emerge from the slavery of his fellows. The old 
landlords are only too glad to make easy terms of 
purchase for any one who will take their acres, 
but, so far, the only purchasers are speculators 
and land-sharks from the towns, who traffic in es- 
tates with no reference to increasing their values. 
Occasionally a peasant has shown sufficient en- 
ergy to get possession of a little patch adjoin- 
ing that of his " communistic " one, but the vil- 
lage elders eye such a proceeding suspiciously, 
and his fellows are apt to boycott one who pre- 
tends to be better than the rest. If the energetic 
peasant proposes to manure his property, the 
elders interfere and order him first to manure 
the one he holds in common ; the village elders 
exercise an almost absolute control in their com- 
munity, even to the extent of sending to Siberia 
any peasant they regard as " unsafe." Nothing 
in their eyes is so " unsafe " as to show a dis- 
position to rise above the common level of the 
communistic herd, and such a one they are able 
to ruin if they bear a grudge against him. 

For the government in Russia does not tax 
the individual peasant ; it ignores him completely, 
and notices only the village elders, who repre- 
sent a community of about two hundred souls. 
Their elder chief is responsible to the government 
for the taxes, and his authority is unquestioned so 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 253 

long as the tax-collector is satisfied. Obviously, 
the community at large looks with hatred upon 
any member who expends any part of his energy 
outside of the community, and many other reasons 
conspire to force the peasant to remain stuck in 
the mire, even had he the training, education, and 
blood of the German. Perhaps of these reasons 
the most potent is, that no peasant can move 
from his village without the consent of the elders, 
and this permission cannot be granted unless the 
peasant has paid his obligations, both at the vil- 
lage store and the tax-office. The Russian peas- 
ant resembles the Southern negro, in that both 
are quick to seek credit of the usurer, and both 
averse to settlement, the consequence of which 
is that the Jew of Alabama or Georgia bears a 
close resemblance to the village elders of Nov- 
gorod or Kieff. 

" In spite of what I have suffered at their 
hands," said Alsenstorm, " I cannot help feeling 
sorry for these poor Russian peasants. They 
cling to a communism that has made them little 
better than wild beasts or paupers ; they court 
ignorance, and are the prey of a besotted priest- 
hood ; they have all the faults of children, and 
scarcely a virtue that we associate with man. 
Let me tell you something else : 

" One fine winter's morning sleigh-bells jingled 
in our village. A police-captain and his lieuten- 
ant made their appearance, wrapped up in furs. 



254 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

Behind them was a mysterious bundle covered 
with a cloth. This all happened before I set- 
tled here, but the impression is fresh still. The 
peasants gathered quickly about the strangers, 
anticipating nothing good from the appearance 
of a police-officer in their midst. The captain 
alighted slowly from the sleigh, eyed his audi- 
ence sharply, while he calculated the amount he 
could wring from them ; then said sternly : 

" ' Where is your village elder?' 

" ' Here, your grace,' answered a white-haired, 
venerable peasant, bowing abjectly. 

" ' Your name ?' continued the police cap- 
tain. 

" ' Ivan Ivanovitch, your grace,' answered the 
old man, bowing again almost to the earth. 

" ' Ivan Ivanovitch,' said the captain impres- 
sively, addressing the congregation of trembling 
peasants, ' a terrible crime has been committed 
close to this village on your land.' 

" ' In God's name, what ?' asked the old man, 
turning pale. 

" ' See, then, for yourself,' said the police-cap- 
tain ; and with that he threw off the cover and 
revealed to the panic-stricken gaze of the sim- 
ple villagers the mutilated body of a dead man. 
' This is a frightful crime,' continued the captain, 
1 and there must be a dreadful retribution. Your 
community is responsible for this murder, and 
must bear the consequences. There must be a 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 255 

commission sent here ; the matter must be in- 
vestigated.' 

" ' Anything but that !' begged the village el- 
der piteously, stroking and kissing the captain's 
coat. He knew too well that such a commission 
meant ruinous fines, to say nothing of floggings 
for every witness. The peasants with one voice 
joined in the appeal : ' Anything but a judicial 
inquiry.' 

" ' But the matter is very serious,' said the cap- 
tain ; ' an inquiry must be held.' 

" ' But perhaps you can help us out of the 
trouble,' said the elder, persuasively. 

"'Perhaps!' mused the captain. 'But it will 
cost me a lot of money.' 

" ' What do you want us to pay?' asked the 
elder. 

" ' One hundred rubles may do it,' said the 
captain. 

" * One hundred rubles !' screamed the desper- 
ate peasants. ' We haven't got so much in the 
whole place ; you want to ruin us !' 

" ' Take fifty,' pleaded the venerable elder. 

" ' What, you rascals ! do you take me for a 
beggar, that you seek to dicker with me ? How- 
ever, you seem to be poor ; I shall insist only on 
seventy.' 

" The peasants agreed sadly to the bargain ; 
the money was paid ; the captain and his lieuten- 
ant climbed into the sleigh once more, and drove 



256 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

away with the corpse to the next village. Here 
they repeated the same performance, and as long 
as the cold weather lasted that corpse repre- 
sented at least fifty rubles out of every village 
community it visited. Of course, that particular 
trick will not be repeated in our lifetime ; but 
others just as brutal will take its place, for the 
peasants are always ready to be fooled and 
fleeced by any one who comes along dressed 
either as a policeman or a priest. 

" Speaking of priests," continued Alsenstorm, 
" there are priests and priests. Ours are mostly 
coarse and corrupt, and not essentially different 
from the peasants they are supposed to elevate. 
They do not get proper pay from the govern- 
ment, and unless they are industrious and work 
their land very thoroughly they cannot make a 
very good show at the end of the year. There 
are, however, a great many indirect ways in which 
they make this deficit, good, and where their 
flocks are far from the main line of travel they 
have many temptations to line their own pockets 
under the pretence of collecting for their church. 
Of course they make quite a little trade by funer- 
als, weddings, and the like , and vastly more by 
blessing cattle and crops, and frightening away 
devils and plagues. With a peasantry so credu- 
lous and helpless as that of Russia, the post of 
village priest is one of great power and consider- 
able profit. 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 257 

" Somewhat to the eastward of us is a village 
where they have what they call Black Day. It 
is not well for me to designate time and place too 
closely ; I only add that this village is inhabited 
by very poor peasants, who, somehow or other, 
have slipped away from the gentle ministrations 
of the Greek Orthodox Church. 



A MISSIONARY TALE 

" One fine day, when the sun was shining 
kindly, the flowers smiling sweetly, and the birds 
proclaiming the goodness of God, a panting lad 
rushed into the place shouting 'Black Day!' 
The peasants flew from their huts to learn more 
of the sad news ; mothers clutched their babies, 
fathers clinched their teeth, even little children 
realized that danger was near. 

" ' What have you seen ?' asked the mothers. 

" ' A priest with a district inspector in one 
wagon, and another wagon full of police.' 

" A thick cloud of dust appeared between 
the last houses of the village, and soon the two 
wagons drew up in the centre of the wretched 
place. Out jumped the priest ; behind him stood 
the soldiers, one of whom held a rope. 

" ' Here, you,' said the priest sternly, pointing 
to the nearest villager, 'show me your certificate 
of having come to communion ?' 



258 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

" ' Dearest father,' answered the peasant, ' I 
haven't got it.' 

"You dog!' continued the Gospel messenger, 
' why did you stay away from communion?' 

"'The harvest — hard work — my wife was ill. 
Oh, forgive me, dear little father!' cried the 
wretched man. And falling on his knees, he 
clutched the hem of the priest's robe. 

'"I'll teach you to find time,' said the priest, 
significantly. ' Twenty-five will suit him — eh ?' 
said he, turning to the district inspector, whose 
military cap, rows of brass buttons, belt, boots, 
and sword gave a strangely military character to 
the missionary enterprise. 

" The inspector had been a non-commissioned 
officer in the army, had served in the Turkoman 
campaign, and understood the Oriental methods 
of earning money by official means. He and 
the priest were working this route on joint profits, 
and there was no danger, therefore, that the secu- 
lar arm of the law would be raised to shield the 
crouching heretic from the sentence of the eccle- 
siastical one. 

" The priest's query was answered by an ap- 
proving nod, and the police servants promptly 
produced from beneath the second wagon a bench 
constructed with particular reference to the dimen- 
sions of a human body. The peasant was roped 
down to this with a dexterity born of constant 
practice, and a police soldier commenced to lay 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 259 

on the blows with a heavy lash. At the ninth 
blow the back of the priest's victim suggested 
the meat on a butcher's block, and at the tenth 
he roared out : 

" ' Dearest father, have mercy ! I will pay what 
I can !' 

" The police-inspector ordered a halt, and the 
priest asked, gently : 

" ' Well, what will you pay for your sins, my 
sweet child ?' 

" ' Five rubles !' groaned the victim. 

"' That's a fine joke,' laughed the police-in- 
spector. ' You take us for fools. Ha, ha ! only 
five rubles. Go on with the flogging.' And 
the hissing lash cut deeper into the peasant's 
back. 

" ' You shall have ten !' roared the peasant. 

" ' Nonsense ; go on with the flogging/ answered 
the police-inspector. 

"'Twenty!' finally came from the half-dead 
body on the butcher's bench. 

" The priest leaned his mouth to the poor fel- 
low's ear and said, insinuatingly : 

" ' Let me intercede for you ; make it twenty- 
five — that is a nice round sum ; it breaks my 
heart to have you suffer. Shall we say twenty- 
five?' 

" The peasant could only nod his head feebly 
in sign of assent. The soldiers unstrapped him, 
his shirt was thrown over his bleeding body, and 



260 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

away he staggered to his hovel. The little 
money he had saved in the hopes of buying a 
cow, or perhaps paying off arrears of taxes, was 
taken from him, and put into the pockets of the 
priest and his official partner. That night was a 
bitter one in the hut of that poor man and his 
family. His only crime had been to worship 
God as he saw' fit. He had harmed no man, had 
violated no law which a civilized man can re- 
spect. That poor peasant is too poor to emi- 
grate, too ignorant to change his occupation, too 
helpless to avoid the petty tyranny that presses 
upon him. His cries never reach the outer 
world, for to him heaven is high and the czar is 
far away. No newspaper correspondents pene- 
trate to his miserable corner, and if they did 
they would never have gone back alive. Priest 
and police can do there pretty much as they like. 
No questions will be raised, so long as the gov- 
ernment receives the amount of taxes it has rea- 
son to expect." 

Alsenstorm's story made me feel sick, for it 
went on to tell me how the clerical beast went 
on from one peasant to the other, flogging each 
in turn, until he had squeezed out all the money 
that could reasonably be expected. Afterwards 
the cabins were searched in turn for any images 
or emblems that might be unorthodox, and when 
the visitation was completed the peasants stared 
blankly at one another, as people over whom a 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 26 1 

devastating blizzard has passed. Of course, I 
suggested to my friend that the case he men- 
tioned must be very exceptional indeed. 

" Exceptional !" exclaimed he, excitedly. " I 
wish it were. The Greek Church, backed by the 
Third Section, is visiting every village of the 
empire, in the same spirit, if not with the same 
instruments, that I have referred to. The Prot- 
estants of the Baltic provinces, the Finns, the 
Poles, the non-conforming Russians in every part 
of the country, the German colonists in Bessa- 
rabia — all are the objects of persecution to the 
fullest possible extent. The more remote the 
heretic, the more brutal are the means employed 
for his conversion. In communities where the 
people are educated the priests have to be care- 
ful, but the spirit that underlies the war-cry 
of ' Russia for the Russians ' is the same that 
watched the flogging of that bleeding heretic to 
the eastward of us. The Russian Church im- 
proves nothing ; it can only drag down, flog, and 
exterminate. Give it time, and one day we 
shall lose the little light that still glimmers in 
Poland and along the Baltic." 

At the close of our long drive I was amazed to 
find a village whose streets were clean, whose 
houses were substantially built and in good re- 
pair. The little children looked as though they 
had prosperous fathers and mothers — in other 
words, it did not seem like Russia. The fields I 



262 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

had passed showed good husbandry, the cattle 
looked strangely sleek ; in short, all the signs 
were such as I thought to have left behind me 
when I crossed the frontier. 

" I meant to give you a shock," said Alsen- 
storm, " and now I will tell you about it. The 
people you find about me now are from the Bal- 
tic provinces of Kurland and Livland — countries 
settled originally by Germans ; I have attracted 
them to this wilderness by giving them the op- 
portunity of purchasing a portion of my land on 
reasonable terms, and spreading payment over 
many years. They are all peasant-proprietors, 
these Kurlanders, self-respecting, thrifty, indus- 
trious people. Their blood is not German, but 
their people have enjoyed centuries of German 
civilization. They are Slav, and would be as 
dirty and shiftless as their kinspeople of Rus- 
sia, had they known no other government than 
that of the drunken elder or the county police. 
In the land they come from the roads are well- 
made and maintained; every village has a tidy 
school-house. The fields are well drained and 
cultivated ; the nobles live upon their estates, 
and exercise an excellent influence about them, 
in the administration of justice and the main- 
tenance of local institutions. The people be- 
long mostly to the Lutheran Church, and every- 
where you find well-educated clergymen, who 
do their duty conscientiously, foster liberal educa- 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 263 

tion, and cultivate their land thoroughly. The 
people of these Baltic provinces have been loyal 
to the czar throughout the two centuries that 
they have belonged to his empire. They have 
enjoyed a large measure of local self-government, 
and it is this that has made them so superior to 
the rest of Russia. Their towns are centres of 
commercial and intellectual activity ; no schools 
in Russia compare with those which the Germans 
maintain there, and the University of Dorpat is 
far beyond anything dreamed of by a Russian. 
The people of these provinces were emanci- 
pated from serfdom nearly a generation before 
the Russian edict was promulgated. The czar's 
government has produced misery and mischief 
by its measure ; the German provinces effected 
the change so simply and wisely that it has re- 
sulted in blessings. The Russian emancipation 
created a vast gulf between the noble and peas- 
ant, which thirty years has only widened. The 
emancipation along the Baltic has created an 
excellent class of independent farmers, who re- 
gard their interests as identical with those of 
their former landlords, and who take the liveliest 
interest in protecting their present system of 
education and administration against the demor- 
alizing influence of the Russian priest and po- 
liceman. 

" The Baltic nobles discussed the question of 
emancipation long and thoroughly in the first 



264 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

half of the century. They deliberately voted 
the measure as an economic necessity, although 
there was among them a large party that thought 
they would be ruined by the transaction. .They 
had, however, to deal in these provinces, not 
with a peasantry debased by centuries of igno- 
rance and oppression, but with a set of sturdy 
people who had been gradually raised to a high 
religious and educational standard. The nobles 
voted that each estate should alienate the major- 
ity of its acreage to such peasants as chose to 
purchase at a valuation fixed by law, and in pay- 
ments covering a long series of years. Other ar- 
rangements, such as working on shares, were also 
made. The peasant thus not only became at 
once a free man, but earned the right to purchase, 
on reasonable terms, the land on which his family 
may have thrived for centuries past. That the 
peasants of Kurland and Livland have availed 
themselves at all of these practical provisions 
shows not only that they are intelligent and in- 
dustrious, but speaks equally well for the good 
sense of the proprietors who voted the laws. 
More than half of the land of that country is in 
the hands of independent farmers, and every year 
the number increases." 

I stopped my friend here to ask him if Kur- 
land and Ireland had anything in common. 

" The Irish question is the easiest in the world, 
if you will only stop agitation and study it prac- 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 265 

tically. The great difficulty in Ireland is, how- 
ever, that the Roman Catholic peasantry is grossly 
ignorant, and has quite lost touch with the only 
men who are in a position to help it — namely, 
the landed proprietors. So far as I can see, the 
dispossessed Irish are about as shiftless and help- 
less as the Russian peasants, and perhaps for the 
same reason — centuries of neglect and supersti- 
tious priestcraft. 

" If the peasants you see about me were of 
German origin you might attribute their pros- 
perity to that fact. But they are not, and that is 
the interesting feature of the problem. It shows 
conclusively that the Russian government has 
degraded and pauperized its own people, and 
that it will do the same for those of the Bal- 
tic provinces, when it succeeds in undoing what 
German patience has to-day achieved." 

" But if the people of the German provinces 
are so happy at home," I queried,'" why do they 
emigrate to Russia?" 

" If I were a Yankee," answered Alsenstorm, 
with a laugh, " I would answer you with another 
question — Why does America get her largest 
emigration from the best-governed and most pros- 
perous countries ? Why do Germany and Austro- 
Hungary send you together nearly 200,000 in one 
single year — for these are two countries of enor- 
mous wealth, and representing a well-adminis- 
tered and prosperous area. Why should they 



266 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

leave their homes and the advanced civilization 
that surrounds them, and go away to battle 
with the hardships of a new country? Of course 
they go to make money ; but then, why do not 
other countries emigrate in the same proportion ? 
How happens it that these two countries send 
annually to your country more emigrants than 
Russia, Turkey, and, I might add, the rest of the 
non-European world, where wages are very much 
lower, and the lot of man infinitely harder? I 
say nothing of England and Ireland, for they 
speak your own language ; yet is it not odd that 
England alone sends to America quite as many 
emigrants as Russia? Is it that wages are lower 
in England than in Russia ? Of course not. The 
Russian peasant is too dull, too drunken, to make 
the necessary effort. The emigrant is the man 
who has saved something, who is prepared to 
look ahead, who will work hard to achieve inde- 
pendence. The German emigrates more readily 
than the Russian, because he is a better-educated 
and more self-reliant man. 

" I am now answering your question. The 
peasant of the Baltic provinces comes to Rus- 
sia because the landlords here offer him their 
acres at vastly more profitable rates than he 
can secure in Kurland. It proves that land is 
hard to get in Kurland and comparatively cheap 
in Russia. It proves further that the Baltic peas- 
ant has much pluck and self-reliance, or he 



ON A RUSSIAN FARM 267 

would not venture here, among a population that 
hates him for his creed, hates him for his sup- 
posed German affiliations, and finally hates him 
for getting on in the world. The Russian peas- 
ant, in a country where land is sold for almost 
nominal prices, finds himself crowded out by a 
strange people, who convert swamps into mead- 
ows, and become rich on land which they have 
always regarded as waste. The Kurlander's 
farm is an oasis in a desert of Russian retrogres- 
sion. The Russian landlord prays for his arrival. 
He knows that every farm prospers when a Kur- 
lander takes charge. But Kurlanders are hard 
to get. They feel themselves in the enemy's 
country when their future rests with police and 
priests of Holy Russia. It is bad enough to bat- 
tle with the malice and dishonesty of the Russian 
peasant, but it is a little too much to have the 
priest and police also on the side of barbarism." 
Alsenstorm is making the experiment. He 
will probably fail in this, as he did in the first, 
and we shall perhaps soon hear that he and half 
his colony have been shipped to the salt-mines 
of Kara for spreading ideas that are dangerous 
to society. He is at present doing the one thing 
which the Russian police cannot pardon : he is 
teaching the people about him to desire some- 
thing better than they have known before. 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 

THE Baltic provinces of Russia extend from 
the frontier of Prussia almost to St. Pe- 
tersburg, and belong to Russia by virtue of a com- 
pact guaranteeing to the people of that prov- 
ince religious and civil liberty, according to the 
law which they brought with them from Ger- 
many. Peter the Great confirmed this consti- 
tution to them, and the Emperor Alexander IT. 
subscribed to it in 1856 ; the present czar, Alex- 
ander II., however, in 1885, repudiated the obli- 
gations solemnly entered into by his ancestors, 
and by this act removed the only barrier pro- 
tecting this province against persecution by the 
orthodox clergy. The Russian government had 
constantly invaded the liberties of their German 
subjects, but had never questioned them in the- 
ory until the present reign. The late czar, in 
fact, went so far as to rebuke the Greek clergy 
for their intemperate proselytizing zeal in the 
Baltic provinces, and in 1865 he issued a secret 
order to them that they might henceforth stop 
meddling with Lutheran peasants. 

The present czar gave the following answer to 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 269 

the Protestant people who begged of him only 
the right to worship God according to the usage 
of their fathers : " That his majesty had read 
the petition, and had been pleased to order that 
such request should never again be made. His 
majesty hoped that the nobles would do their 
duty towards the absorption of the Baltic prov- 
inces into the rest of Russia, and in this man- 
ner show their loyalty. His majesty regarded 
the Baltic provinces exactly as he did the rest 
of Russia, and would deal out to them equal jus- 
tice and also equal law, without any privileges 
whatever." 

This answer meant that from that time forth 
the Baltic provinces were handed over to the 
government of the Greek Church and the Rus- 
sian police, without any reference to solemn 
promises often renewed. What the present 
state of things is may be gathered from the story 
of Dr. Brandt, a Protestant clergyman, at a place 
called Palzmar, who was dismissed from his post 
and expelled from the country by the Russian 
government for the crime of having preached 
the gospel. 

Shortly before the twenty -'fifth anniversary 
of his pastorate, on February 2, 1883, he re- 
ceived from his superiors notice that he had 
been criminally charged at the bar of the Greek 
Church for having married peasants who had 
left the Protestant Church, had gone over to the 



270 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

Greek, repented, and had now come back to their 
first preacher. This case was being tried when, 
in May of 1886, he was brought before the crim- 
inal court for the same offence, and also for hav- 
ing confirmed people of his own religious faith. 
Before this tribunal the pastor was completely 
acquitted, at least by the reconverted peasants, 
who insisted that they were Lutherans, had never 
been anything else, and did not wish to change 
their faith. 

It ought to be explained here that, prior to 
1865, about a hundred thousand peasants of the 
country had been lured into the Greek Church by 
promises of land and other worldly advantages 
which, at the time, were particularly effective, as 
the country had suffered three successive years 
of bad crops, and, moreover, the Greek priests 
assured them that there was no difference be- 
tween Lutherans and orthodox, excepting that 
the orthodox enjoyed the favor of the czar, and 
the Lutherans could not be regarded as anything 
else than disloyal subjects. 

To make a long story short, these poor peas- 
ants soon found out their mistake — first, that they 
did not get the land that was promised them, and 
secondly, that they had changed the ministry of 
educated and spiritually-minded men for a rit- 
ual gorgeous enough in its externals, but as bar- 
ren of Christian quality as the Llama Temple of 
Pekin. ' 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 27 1 

Now in Russia an orthodox priest can abuse 
a Protestant as much as he pleases, and prosely- 
tize to his heart's content ; but if a Protestant 
dares address an orthodox on the subject of re- 
ligion, he commits a crime in the eyes of the law. 
The Greek priests, therefore, had the field to 
themselves, in coaxing away Protestant peasants 
of weak understanding; but not a Protestant 
clergyman dared, in the pulpit or anywhere else, 
to explain to his people the difference between 
the orthodox and the Lutheran system of religion. 
In spite of this, however, the peasants came flock- 
ing back to their former pastors, begging to have 
their children christened, their brothers and sis- 
ters wedded, or their parents laid in the grave, 
according to the rites of their own religion. 
But this was against the law, albeit the law ran 
counter to their ancient constitution. The Prot- 
estant peasants might become orthodox, but they 
could not change back into the Protestant faith, 
they, or their children, or their children's chil- 
dren. Great was the panic, therefore, when it 
became clear, from the arrest of Dr. Brandt, 
that they were forever to be cut off from Prot- 
estant communion, on account of a thoughtless 
step, taken under extraordinary pressure. They 
commenced to organize, and to devise measures 
by which they could free themselves from the 
orthodox yoke. 

At about this time, in May of 1885, there ar- 



272 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

rived a Greek bishop from Riga to this quiet 
place on a journey of inspection. A crowd of the 
reconverts gathered about the place, awaiting his 
arrival, and hoping from him to obtain the per- 
mission they so much coveted of once more com- 
muning with their own people. The bishop went 
into the Greek church, and after a short service 
there came out, and by means of an interpreter 
invited the people to come in to listen to a 
service which, he assured them, they would soon 
learn to enjoy. He said, also, that he would 
make them a present of books. But the peas- 
ants shook their heads, and said they were Lu- 
therans, who had only come to beg the bishop 
henceforth to consider them as not of the ortho- 
dox church. Upon this the bishop told them 
that they had come there at the instigation of 
the Lutheran pastor; but this they emphatically 
denied, assuring their accuser that they came be- 
cause their conscience troubled them, and they 
wished to persist as Lutherans. The bishop then 
took another course, and pointed out that the 
Greek Church was stronger than the Lutheran, 
which would soon go to pieces, and that the czar 
was orthodox, and only through' him could any 
one secure everlasting happiness. He told them 
that the Lutherans would not be considered at 
the Judgment Day, but would lie rotting in their 
graves, whereas the orthodox would rise and go 
to heaven. A peasant then asked the bishop if 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 273 

any one had ever seen an orthodox rising up to 
heaven, and another asserted that if they dug 
up the graves of Lutheran and orthodox they 
would find that the orthodox were in no better 
state of preservation than the Lutherans. The 
bishop then threatened that he would have their 
Protestant pastor dismissed, and leave them en- 
tirely without a church, if they did not behave 
themselves as orthodox. Whereupon the peas- 
ants answered that, even if this took place they 
would have the Word of God within them, and 
would no doubt bury one another after a fashion; 
would form a Lutheran society, and appoint the 
most learned among them to tender the sacra- 
ment. 

On the following day came Anne Kursem- 
neeks, a thirty-two-year-old peasant of the place, 
accompanied by her sponsors. They declared to 
the bishop that she was baptized a Lutheran, and 
begged of him a certificate to the effect that the 
orthodox clergy had no claim upon her. The 
bishop answered curtly that the Lutheran pastor 
must have instigated her to this step, otherwise 
she would not have come, for if she had been 
baptized a Greek, and entered in the church book 
as a Greek, she would have to remain orthodox. 
But she answered that she had come entirely of 
her own impulse, that she had no idea of ever be- 
coming orthodox, and she only sought this cer- 
tificate to protect her against claims that were 



274 T HE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

apt to be raised by the orthodox clergy. Here- 
upon the bishop walked back into his private 
room, and there presented an eikon, or holy im- 
age of the Virgin Mary, telling her to say her 
prayers to it. But this she declined to do, say- 
ing that she recognized only Jesus Christ as in- 
termediary with the Almighty. A priest then 
urged her to take it, stating that if she did so 
the bishop would forgive her sins. To this she 
answered that such forgiveness was beyond his 
powers, because he was only a man, and that 
even their pastor never pretended to as much as 
this, for he only pointed them to God. She was 
then told that she was a great sinner. This she 
admitted, but she comforted herself by the reflec- 
tion that the publican in the Bible was also a sin- 
ner and received forgiveness, whereas the Phari- 
see did not fare so well ; " besides," said she, 
naively, " the orthodox priests know nothing of 
my sins except that my father left the Protestant 
Church and became orthodox." 

She did not mention, by-the-way, that he had 
allowed himself to be confirmed while in a 
drunken condition. 

They then told her that the czar would have 
her punished for her obstinacy, but this she an- 
swered cheerfully by saying that he might have 
her life but not her faith. Hereupon the Greek 
priests ordered her out of the room. 

All this seems strangely childish and mediaeval 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 275 

when it appears in print ; but as I listened to the 
recital of this story from a venerable man who 
had held high office under the Russian govern- 
ment, and who, though used to official heart- 
lessness, could not restrain his tears as he de- 
tailed this episode in order to make me appre- 
ciate the state of existence in his native country, 
it made on me an impression which I cannot 
hope to reproduce among people accustomed 
to legal safeguards for their constitutional lib- 
erty. 

When the reconverted peasants found they 
could do nothing by beseeching the Greek bishop, 
they turned to the officials of the law and begged 
them to assist in getting a petition to the czar 
on this subject; but these authorities would have 
nothing to do with the matter, remarking that 
Church affairs was no business of theirs. Even 
the administrative body of the Lutheran Church, 
the consistory, declined to receive a petition on 
this subject signed by one hundred and thirty- 
six reconverted peasants, that is to say, peasants 
who wished to return to the Protestant faith, 
which they had left under circumstances which 
no one familiar with the matter could reasonably 
call a change of heart or mind. The reasons for 
this denial of comfort by the heads of the Prot- 
estant Church organization were obvious ; for, 
as we have seen, they exposed themselves to 
criminal prosecution by taking an attitude which 



276 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

brought them into conflict with the orthodox 
communion. 

In the midst of this religious excitement ap- 
peared the czar's order of July 26, 1885, which 
brushed aside all the mitigating measures which 
Alexander II. had conceived and published se- 
cretly in 1865 (March 19th). The effect of this 
was to place a strict watch upon every Luther- 
an preacher, to see that he kept absolutely clear 
of the reconverted peasants. It also made it 
a crime for the children of mixed marriages to 
enter a Lutheran church, no matter what the 
desires of one or both parents might be. We 
may imagine the consternation that seized upon 
the Protestant community when these regula- 
tions were, as the law required, read from the 
pulpit of every church throughout the Baltic 
provinces, and the doors of the Protestant parson- 
ages were thronged with panic-stricken Luther- 
ans, who begged that something might be done 
for them to rescue at least their children from 
the cruel claims of the orthodox priesthood. 

Dr. Brandt was regarded as one of the most 
cautious among the Lutheran clergymen in the 
Baltic provinces, and those who importuned him 
he advised to remain quiet, to avoid every ap- 
pearance of conflict with the constituted authori- 
ties, to make no effort towards taking the com- 
munion by stealth, and to hope for a change in 
the law. He believed, as most people did at 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 277 

that time, that the czar could not possibly 
mean to persecute the unorthodox, and was per- 
haps acting in ignorance of the true state of 
things. In this belief he hastened to St. Peters- 
burg, and had an interview with the chairman 
of the Committee on Petitions, for the purpose 
of ascertaining if one on this subject would be 
entertained. The official expressed himself in a 
hopeful manner, promised to support the Prot- 
estant cause before the emperor, and suggested 
that three petitions only should be submitted, 
each conceived in a different way, by three dif- 
ferent members of the community. With this 
cheering message the reverend pastor hastened 
back to his flock, told them the result of his 
mission, and selected as petitioners three recon- 
verted peasants — by name, Peter Leitis, John 
Ohsol, and Anne Kursemneeks — who straight- 
way sat down to the momentous task of address- 
ing their dread sovereign, the present czar. It 
was a dangerous thing to do, and they knew that 
by this act they were exposing themselves to 
great risk; but the spirit of martyrs was in them, 
and they subscribed their names as cheerfully as 
did the great Reformer four centuries ago. The 
Russian school-teacher was then called for the 
purpose of making the translation, for these peas- 
ants are not Russian, and know nothing of the 
Russian language. On the following morning, 
the 19th of October, this momentous document 



278 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

left the little village of Palzmar, from which it 
had to journey about forty miles until it reached 
the railway that joins Riga with St. Petersburg, 
for Palzmar is about half-way between Pskov and 
Riga. Many were the fervent prayers offered in 
that obscure little village of the Baltic provinces 
as the days passed by, and the answer of their 
gracious sovereign was eagerly looked for. These 
were but poor, plain people, begging on their 
knees, and at the close of this enlightened cen- 
tury, nothing more dangerous than the right of 
worshipping God according to the custom of 
their fathers, and of baptizing their children in 
the faith of their parents. How deep the feeling 
was that animated these simple peasants is well 
illustrated by the touching petition signed by 
Anne Kursemneeks and her sister, and I quote 
it for its historic value : 

"Lofty and most Gracious Master and Czar, — We cast 
ourselves at the feet of Your Majesty in deepest humility. We 
pray that you will glance at us in our unworthiness and allow one 
beam of your mercy to shine also upon us. Our father, in an 
unholy moment, denied his faith through the desire of earthly 
prosperity, and forgetting the welfare of his soul ; this act he 
has since deeply deplored with contrition and heart-felt sorrow. 
We pray God to forgive our father his undue haste, and believe 
it to be all the more our duty to abide in the faith of our dear 
Lutheran teaching, as only in this faith do we find peace for our 
hearts and comfort for our spirits. 

" But the Russian priests of this place seek to force us with 
violence into the Russian Church, in spite of the fact that from 
.our babyhood we have been, in every respect, members of the 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 279 

Lutheran communion. They will not listen to the cries of our 
sorrowful hearts ; they do not allow themselves to be moved by 
our prayers, but, on the contrary, are threatening us with punish- 
ment because we will not break from our Lutheran faith. They 
seek by this means to rob us of the firm foundation on which our 
eternal hope is based. 

" Pity us, therefore, lofty Master and Czar, and permit us, we 
entreat you, to remain in the faith of our fathers. For, if Your 
Majesty should not be pleased to grant this prayer, we should be 
forced to remain outcast and miserable indeed, without Church, 
without instruction in the Word of God, without the Holy Com- 
munion. For we have covenanted in our hearts and in the face 
of God that we will never surrender our faith. God has heard 
this prayer — hear it, oh, hear it also, Lofty Master ! 

' ' Looking to your almighty lips for a little word that shall 
make us happy, we remain, 

" Your Majesty's most obedient and submissive servants, 
"Anne Kursemneeks, 
" Sanne Rudsit (her sister). 
"Palzmar, 18th October, 1885." 

The pastor of Palzmar, Dr. Brandt, had confi- 
dently hoped from the benevolent expressions 
of the St. Petersburg official that these peti- 
tions would come before the czar in person, and 
his hopes were naturally shared by the commu- 
nity of his church. But he little knew the de- 
viousness of official practice in the capital. As 
events proved, the supplications were handed 
over to the enemy, that is to say, the authorities 
of the orthodox church, who promptly called in 
the assistance of the notorious Third Section of 
the government — the Political Police — with the 
result that, on the evening of December 3, 1885, 



280 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

a police-officer arrived in Palzmar, and took up 
his quarters with the Russian priest. On the 
following morning commenced a series of in- 
quisitorial sessions, with a view to drawing Dr. 
Brandt and others within the clutches of the 
law. For four days witnesses were examined, 
many reconverts, many orthodox, the elders of 
the Lutheran community, the teachers, and the 
local officials. 

The police functionary had brought a non- 
commissioned officer with him who acted as 
interpreter, being occasionally relieved by the 
Russian school -master of the village. In the 
anteroom were stationed the two Russians who 
taught in the school of the Russian priest, and 
whose business it was to see that none of the 
victims were allowed to communicate one with 
the other. These two were particularly active 
in assisting the cause of the inquisition by 
threatening with prison such as insisted that 
they intended to remain Protestant. Those who 
came out from the inquisition stated that the 
Russian teacher did not translate properly, and 
that the police official entered upon his minutes 
only the testimony which was prejudicial to the 
Protestant pastor, excluding much that was in 
his favor. 

The rapidity with which this drum-head court- 
martial was carried on, particularly on account 
of a foreign language being used, and a manifest 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 28 1 

desire to confuse the statements of simple peas- 
ants, produced a result anything but that usually 
associated with impartial inquiry. Two of the 
petitioners, Ohsol and Leitis, along with a num- 
ber of other victims, were so thoroughly fright- 
ened by the threats of the orthodox inquisitors 
that they recanted by seeking to place the blame 
upon their courageous pastor; but the great ma- 
jority, to their glory be it recorded, protested 
that they were Protestants, and could not be 
otherwise ; that they had become so of their own 
free will, without any persuasion on the part of 
their pastor, and that they would stand by him 
at any cost. 

Anne Kursemneeks set an example that makes 
her name worthy to rank with the noblest, if, 
under that head, we include those who have 
given their life rather than surrender liberty of 
conscience. 

The brutal tribunal before which she was 
dragged asked how she dared presume to ad- 
dress so exalted a being as the czar ! To this 
she answered, with what we may fairly consider 
inspired simplicity, that she prayed to God every 
day of the year, and did not hesitate to ask the 
Almighty for anything that she desired. For 
this reason she had considered it right to ask the 
czar, who pretended to be the representative of 
God on earth, for a favor which he alone could 
grant. 



252 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

She was asked how she dared to sign her peti- 
tion as " most obedient servant," when all the 
while she was resisting the czar's orders by hold- 
ing to the Lutheran Church. 

She answered that she was prepared to give up 
everything to the czar, even her life — - 

At this point a gendarme interrupted her, 
sneeringly, and said that nobody cared for her 
life. 

" But," said she, ignoring the brutal interrup- 
tion, " my faith I cannot give away, for it be- 
longs to God." 

Soon after this came the turn of the pastor 
himself, who was charged by this orthodox po- 
lice-court with having stirred up the people to 
petition the bishop of the Greek Church, and, 
finally, to have been the instigator of the peti- 
tion to the czar. It is hard to see how either of 
these acts can be construed into a criminal of- 
fence, even by a Russian. This charge was in- 
corporated in a paper containing thirteen ques- 
tions, all of which were to be answered in eight 
days, and in the Russian language. 

Dr. Brandt was frank in meeting every accusa- 
tion, and protested emphatically that he had 
recommended the petition to the czar only be- 
cause it was the only way open to them in their 
extremity ; that those who sought the Lutheran 
Church did so entirely of their own conviction, 
and that he had taken no other share in the 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 283 

preparation of the petitions than to read them 
over, when submitted to him, for the purpose of 
seeing that the proper forms and expressions 
were observed. On the result of these petitions 
hung the fate not only of themselves, but per- 
haps of all other Protestants in the Baltic prov- 
inces, and it could not be expected that at such 
a time he, their pastor, should stand aloof, when 
by his assistance the appeal to his majesty 
might possibly gain in force of diction. We must 
bear in mind that the little village of Palzmar 
did not contain many scholars capable of assist- 
ing peasants in the preparation of so courtly a 
document. 

The negroes of Hayti have a proverb which 
says that " the cockroach is usually wrong when 
arguing with a chicken," an aphorism which is 
elaborated in the fable of the wolf and the lamb. 
Dr. Brandt proved his innocence as completely 
as could be required by any court of law, but un- 
fortunately his argument was made before judges 
who were convened not to deliberate, but to 
convict. In the spring of 1886, about three 
months from the date of his examination, the 
czar personally ordered this Protestant pastor to 
be dismissed from his post, and to be banished to 
Smolensk, where he was to reside under police 
supervision. Stripped of formal language, his 
condemnation was — first to become a beggar, 
then to be exposed to the fanatical persecution 



284 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

of an orthodox community, added to which was 
the arbitrary tyranny of the Russian police, who 
cut off his correspondence, and broke in upon 
him at any hour of the day or night, under pre- 
tence of satisfying themselves that he was not 
harboring disloyal acquaintances. 

The political criminal in Russia, as is well 
known, is exposed to suffering compared to 
which the life of a convicted burglar is joyful. 
The burglar is permitted to employ his talents in 
a useful way, and one for which he is, to a large 
degree, fitted. The college professor, the artist, 
the engineer, the physician, last of all, the cler- 
gyman of the gospel, who is sentenced for the 
crime of having done his duty, is condemned to 
a life that starves not merely his belly but his 
mind. The government is charitable in theory, 
for it allows him seven and a half kopecks (less 
than two pennies of English money) a day. My 
reader naturally asks why he does not support 
himself by work. The Russian police has an- 
swered the question by forbidding political crim- 
inals to engage in any work for which they may 
be presumed to be particularly fitted. They may 
not give instructions in anything, not even the 
piano. The physician may not practise even as 
a volunteer in an urgent case, when no Russian 
doctor is to be had. A deposed clergyman is 
condemned to a punishment more severe than 
can be readily imagined, namely, idleness, which 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 285 

gives him time to brood upon his starving state, 
and balance from day to day the relative merits 
of suicide or insanity. The exile may have kind 
friends disposed to send him money from time 
to time, but he has also a postal censor who does 
not always hand over the money that comes by 
mail. 

The story of Pastor Brandt is the story of 
many another worthy man in the Baltic prov- 
inces. In fact, I was told in Russia last year 
that eighty Protestant clergymen were then un- 
der trial, and would probably be sent to Sibe- 
ria. The Rev. Dr. Brandt, so I hear, has since 
been allowed to leave Smolensk, owing to the 
intercession of powerful friends, perhaps ; but 
more likely because the Russian government felt 
that it had selected an unfortunate example for 
its purpose, one which might excite too much 
sympathy beyond the Russian border. He was, 
however, not allowed to go back to the field of 
his Protestant activity, but given some petty ap- 
pointment in the interior of the empire, where 
he could no longer be a menace to orthodox 
propaganda. 

While the present czar was making out the 
order banishing Dr. Brandt, he made another, 
striking a still more severe blow at the religion of 
his Baltic provinces. The imperial treasury has 
given liberally to the orthodox church for the 
purpose of missionary work among Protestants 



286 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

in the Baltic provinces, notably for the building 
of orthodox churches, parsonages, schools, and 
holy shrines. In this year, however, they went 
a step further, and gave the orthodox church the 
right to condemn and appropriate to their pur- 
poses any Protestant land they chose. On the 
other hand, the Protestant Church dares not take 
a single step either towards building or repair- 
ing a church without the special permission of 
the orthodox bishop. A Protestant congrega- 
tion recently sought to build a church extension, 
but were forbidden to do so by the orthodox 
bishop. Then they petitioned to St. Petersburg, 
but the minister of the interior answered that 
they must abide by the decision of the orthodox 
bishop. Hereupon a deputation of the peas- 
antry appealed to the governor, receiving from 
him, however, an evasive answer. In their ex- 
tremity they once more sought St. Petersburg, 
hoping that, at the feet of the czar, their petition 
would receive attention. It did, but not accord- 
ing to their hopes, for the first of those who 
signed it was locked up in the damp and un- 
wholesome dungeons of the famous prison-for- 
tress named after Peter and Paul, and there he is 
to this day, so far as I have any information. 

This little episode is well capped by the fact 
that, soon after the suppression of a Protestant 
extension here, an orthodox church was built, al- 
though in the whole community there were but 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 287 

seven Russian communicants. In this way, by- 
forbidding Protestant congregations to build 
churches for themselves and holding orthodox 
churches near at hand, empty and ready for ser- 
vice, the czar hopes to weaken the cause of the 
heretics and popularize Panslavism. 

The banishment of Dr. Brandt was soon fol- 
lowed by the dismissal of the village clerk, or 
notary, Carl Semel, and the imprisonment of the 
village school- master and deacon, Jacob Abel; 
thus fulfilling the threat of the Russian priest of 
the village, who said that he regarded these three 
as the props of German ways of thinking in that 
neighborhood, and that he would soon make an 
end of them all. The poor deacon, who was as 
innocent as his pastor, was condemned as one 
whose guilt corresponded with that of the Nihil- 
ists. He was described as " a politically unsafe 
man,'' and it was ordered that he should never 
again be appointed as school-teacher or as church 
assistant of any kind. In the spring of 1886 po- 
licemen appeared at his door and took him away 
to Riga, where he was locked up for several weeks 
as a "political criminal" in the common prison; 
and when they let him go, in August of that year, 
it was to send him out in the world little better 
than a tramp upon the highway, and this was 
in spite of the fact that he was proved innocent 
of all charges brought against him. The little 
village of Palzmar has now two Russian police- 



288 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KATSER 

men stationed there, who assist the Russian priest 
in the development of orthodoxy, and as many 
arrests, examinations, and dismissals from office 
have occurred since the banishment of Dr. Brandt, 
it is safe to say that Russification has set in there 
with a vengeance. 

Through the kindness of a trusted Russian 
friend I have been able to procure some details 
in regard to another victim of Russian persecu- 
tion, Dr. W. Harff, who was banished, treated as 
a Nihilist, kept under police supervision, reduced 
to beggary, and finally saved through the kind- 
ness of German friends, who secured for him a 
small post in Brunswick. Dr Harff was called to 
the pastorate of a church in the Baltic provinces, 
on the river Duna, in 1881 ; it was a Lithuanian 
community, with four thousand five hundred 
Protestant communicants, of whom one hundred 
were Germans, and was a fairly representative 
parish. In 1885 he lost his wife at the birth of 
his youngest son. He had eight children, the 
oldest of whom was fifteen years, but he was liv- 
ing comfortably, according to the circumstances 
of the neighborhood, cultivating his little farm 
and garden, and thus eking out the income 
which his church allowed him. To use this cler- 
gyman's own words: "In the fall of 1887 fell 
the two hundredth anniversary of the Lutheran 
Church in our neighboring parish, and we pro- 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 289 

posed to celebrate the occasion suitably. ' A col- 
lection had been made among the proprietors 
and peasants of the neighborhood in order to 
restore the church and complete the tower. It 
was proposed to have the service first in Lithua- 
nian and then in the German language, and, in 
spite of protests on my part, I was selected to 
hold the Lithuanian service. I chose my text 
from the 33d chapter of Deuteronomy, using the 
words in the song of Moses, ' Ascribe ye great- 
ness unto our God alone.' 

" Mindful of the great sacrifices which had been 
made for the adorning of our house of worship, 
and the great joy in the hearts of all those par- 
taking in this festive ceremony, I referred, in the 
opening words of my discourse, to the uncertain- 
ties of the present time, the fact that the schools 
had been taken away from our control, that the 
building of churches had come to depend upon 
the permission of the Russian bishop, and that 
we must prepare to suffer persecution on account 
of our faith. On this account I urged we should 
prize all the more the happiness we enjoyed at 
that moment. What I said dealt alone with 
facts, but I had said too much to please those 
whose purpose was to exterminate this land and 
people. 

" Immediately after the service I learned that 
secret police had been present and made notes. 
There followed soon secret examinations of many 



2Q0 THE BORDERLAND Ot CZAH and KAISEK 

( ommunh :ants, r<»i this was .1 common cvenl in 
1 hose days, pari icularly wii h 1 he assistan< e 1 >1 
i.di promises or terrible threats. Foui weeks 
.id (i wards I was 1 ailed befi >re .1 captain ol po 
[ice, who spoke very imperfecl German, and who 
had as his assistant a lawyer's i lei I in a si 1 iking 
uniform. They demanded (, l me 1 hal I should 
explain my conducl in si ii 1 Ing up t he people 
againsl 1 he 1 1 1 enl measui es oi 1 he govei iimenl . 
This it was againsl my insl 1 ui 1 ions to do, for, 
a< 1 ording to 1 he lasl impel ial order, no examina 
1 urn ol .1 < l< rgyman should take plat e unless 1 hei e 
woe presenl Borne one to represenl 1 he ( Ihurch 
administration. Accordingly I was released, al 
1 hough no1 before I had been 1 ompelled to sign 
.1 paper engaging myself nol to 1< avi 1 he pai ish 
1 hal is, nol to es< ape fr< >m 1 he R ussian au1 horil y. 

". F01 .1 whole yeai the mattei lay in abeyance ; 
apparenl ly I was free, although ai I ually undei 

observano . tn the sun 1 of [888 I heard thai 

1 wo "I my 1 olleagues had been severely punished, 
hut I si ill 1 1 ied 1 minimi myself wii h i he i efle< 
i ion t hal I hey couFd nol possibly 1 1 >ns1 1 ue my 
conducl as criminal. In September oi e 888, 
however, .1 police official came to my house and 
announced to me I hal his ma jesl y, < »n the rei 
ommendation of his minister, had banished me 
for two yeai s, and in ten days I musl start." 

The punishment was originally to have been 
Siberia, but this ordei was changed for deporta- 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 50] 

tion to .in mi ei ioi town of R ussia. 1 1 Is « olleagui 
oi t he ii< ■ t pai i'.li being exiled al I he same I ime. 

I )r. 1 1 ;m II thanks God, from paragraph to para 
graph in his pathetii account, foi the mercies 
strewn in his path from the momenl "I receiving 
i he < zai 's 1 1 uel 01 dei . His many i hildrcn were 
provided for by i haritable neighbors, and one ol 
his relal ives I ool< i harge "I his lii i Le fai m and 
garden foi him. In order to avoid the 'lemon 
stration whii h his parishioners would have made 
upon his deparl ure, he drove se< rctly to a remote 
station <>i the railway, and there, under the eye, 
of the poli( e, boarded I he I rain, and lefl behind 
everything thai was near and dear to him. 

I n i he principal town of i he province to which 
he was banished he had firsl to reporl himseli 
to the commander <>f the police, who proved to 
be a kindly and cultivated Russian, who did ev 
erything in \w. power to make the clergyman's 
lot tolerable. Ii was an immense reliei to hud 

that they would be allowed to live when- lluy 

< hose, l"i they dreaded an order for< ing them to 
live in some filthy village, fai from every intei 
course with their fellow men. 

Another blessing i ame to I hem in I he shape 
of warm friend',, who received them into theii 
house, and kepi them lor the two years oi their 
' lie. 'I he | as< "I i he Rev. Dr. I [arflf is, i hen 
fore, thai <>f a man whose lot was sweetened 
to him by everything thai could possibly hap- 



292 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

pen in his favor. It is not likely that another 
clergyman would have met with so many fortu- 
nate circumstances while serving a sentence cal- 
culated to crush the average man of education. 
We can easily imagine him to have come under 
the control of a provincial governor who would 
have found the height of satisfaction in annoy- 
ing a gentleman ; who would have ordered him 
to some pestiferous swamp, where the Russian 
priest and the tax-gatherer would have been at 
once his jailers and companions. It is not to be 
supposed that every banished clergyman found 
himself in a position to leave eight children 
among good friends, or to have his little estate 
well managed in his absence. We must bear in 
mind, therefore, that the case of Dr. Harff is ex- 
ceptional. 

The government, in the case of this gentleman, 
made no provision whatever for his support. He 
was, soon after his audience with the governor, 
called before the police and put through a severe 
catechism in regard to all his friends and rela- 
tives — in fact, the usual questions put to Nihilists 
when it is sought to trace all their connections 
and correspondence. The object of this cate- 
chism was, of course, to set spies upon those 
with whom he sought to hold communication, in 
the hope of having them also tangled up in the 
police mesh. They gave him also the rule that 
was to govern his conduct. In a word, he was 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 293 

to live thoroughly retired and quiet, to avoid re- 
ceiving company, and raise his voice while speak- 
ing, never whisper. The police, of course, had 
the right to make domiciliary visits by night 
or day, and all the letters of this victim were, 
naturally, examined. On one occasion a German 
friend happened to pass through the town, where 
he remained only twelve hours. Dr. Harff nat- 
urally took pleasure in acting as his guide about 
the place, but had forgotten that political crim- 
inals are not allowed to frequent public places. 
For this violation of the rules he was taken 
sharply to task by the local police, who had, of 
course, heard that a German stranger, conse- 
quently a suspicious personage, had been seen 
in company with a deposed Lutheran clergy- 
man. 

Early in 1 889 a hard blow was struck at 
our friend, for his majesty then decreed what 
amounted to an additional penalty, namely, that 
he should never again be allowed to hold a posi- 
tion in his own country, that is to say, in the 
Baltic provinces. By this simple decree there 
was nothing for this political exile to look for- 
ward to in the future except beggary and the 
lot of a man without a country. The saddest 
feature of these two years was, according to this 
minister of the gospel, the separation from his 
family at Christmas-time and on birthdays. One 
must have lived in Germany to understand the 



294 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

affection with which those anniversaries are there 
regarded. 

At last came the day of deliverance ; Dr. 
Harff was called to the police-station, and there 
told that he was free. He was about to express 
his joy, when the officials checked him by order- 
ing him to sign a paper in which he covenanted 
never to appear in either St. Petersburg or Mos- 
cow or the provinces in which they lie. So 
here was a man of intellectual training forbid- 
den to return to his pulpit, and excluded from 
the two chief cities of the empire, where he 
might possibly have gained a livelihood in some 
occupation for which he was, in a measure, fit- 
ted. He now prepared to leave the town where 
he had spent his years of unhappiness, but such 
is the tortuousness of Russian officialism that 
he could not move without a pass, and was 
forced to wait a full four weeks before this doc- 
ument was furnished to him. With a heavy 
heart he at last reached the Baltic hamlet, where 
his children awaited him, and heard from the 
lips of his neighbors of the many who had died, 
and the still greater number who were living in 
daily fear of the police and the Russian priest. 
No one felt safe ; each one dreaded fresh steps in 
the direction of Russification, which meant the 
extermination of everything they held dear. Two 
of his sisters had died while he was in exile, and 
he began to feel that a place by their side would 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 295 

be the pleasantest rest he could hope for. He 
had no means of support, and but for the char- 
ity of his former parishioners, he would have 
been reduced to pounding stone by the way- 
side. Under the political system of Russia 
there was to him at that time a choice of only 
two hopes : the one, a possible appointment in 
Germany ; the other, emigration to America. In 
this final extremity, God, he tells us, answered 
his prayers ; for, in Berlin, some good friends 
managed to secure for him a small church with 
at least enough salary to keep him alive and 
allow him to have his dear children about him. 

If we may look at such a time for a silver lin- 
ing to the dark cloud overhanging the Baltic 
provinces, it is to be noted that the persecution 
which has raged in Protestant Russia since the 
accession of the present czar is likely to enlarge 
the sympathy of these people for their fellow- 
victims in Poland, where the Roman Catholics 
have for many years suffered quite as severely, 
to say nothing of many Greek Church sectarians 
who are equally the objects of orthodox malev- 
olence. Shortly after Mr. Remington and I left 
Russia, a friend furnished me with the following 
particulars illustrating the manner in which the 
Greek Church was carrying on its Russifying 
campaign in Lithuania and Poland: On the 15th 
of August, 1892, in the little town of Sledzianov, 



296 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

in the department of Grodno, which is a point 
somewhere between Riga and Warsaw, a large 
crowd of Roman Catholics and Greek Church 
sectarians gathered together from remote parts 
of the neighborhood. They had come to protest 
their loyalty to the faith of their fathers. There 
was a church at this point, but the pastor had 
been deposed, and it had been closed by the po- 
lice. In some mysterious way the door was 
found open when the people arrived, and al- 
though they had no priest they began a solemn 
service, even to the extent of taking the holy 
sacrament, some scraps of bread having been 
found upon the altar, evidently left there through 
the carelessness of the officiating deacon. Hymns 
and fervent prayers filled the church, while round 
about as many as twelve thousand worshippers 
gathered who were unable to crowd into the al- 
ready overfilled building. 

The Russian bishop soon got wind of this act 
of religious insubordination, and ordered his rep- 
resentative immediately to the spot, with whom 
went the governor, a police committee of in- 
quiry, and a regiment of dragoons. The people 
were ordered out of the church, but declined to 
come. They were then told that the building 
would be set on fire, which threat was partially 
carried out when the wretched worshippers, 
exhausted by the fumes of smoke, issued from 
their sacred building. These were then taken in 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 297 

charge by the cavalry soldiers, who struck them 
indiscriminately, and treated them as common 
malefactors. Those whom they chose to se- 
lect as ringleaders were then, in the presence of 
women and children, mothers and sisters, stripped 
and flogged till the blood ran down their backs, 
and until some of them, at least, died under the 
lash. In order that the effect of these measures 
should not be lost upon this rebellious commu- 
nity, the soldiers made a cordon about the place 
so that all should be witnesses of the brutal pun- 
ishment, and take warning by the fate of their 
fellows. When enough had been flogged to 
satisfy the Russifying committee the peasants 
were dismissed, and soon afterwards the inevita- 
ble police investigation commenced. Many of 
the peasants were summoned to Bielsk, where 
they were kept locked up until the government 
had made up its mind what should be done in 
regard to the whole matter. 

There appears to have been considerable sys- 
tem in this particular government movement, for 
from Sledzianov the committee with the gov- 
ernor marched off to a neighboring place where 
there was an equally large Roman Catholic and 
schismatic community whose church had no 
pastor or priest. In order to be quite sure that 
the pious rebels in Sledzianov should not return 
to their wicked ways, they quartered the dra- 
goon regiment upon them for three weeks, dur- 



298 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

ing which time the peasants had of course to 
furnish all that was needful to their comfort, 
under pain of having their houses burned down. 
Their duty it was to patrol the neighborhood, 
and to harry the villages in which were any 
heretics, and, it is needless to add, they did 
pretty much what they chose, as long as their 
victims were enemies of the Russian priest. 
The poor people who are being ruined by this 
system of persecution wonder that the czar al- 
lows it, because, as they say, God is obviously 
on their side, for he has cursed the Russians 
first with famine, and next with cholera ; whereas 
in Poland, Lithuania, and the Baltic provinces, 
the harvest has been excellent, and the public 
health equally so. 

The Russifying committee found a vigorous 
resistance at the next church also, but this was 
speedily overcome by the strong force of police 
which was placed at their disposal. 

The police committee next marched upon a 
place called Semyatitch, all in the same general 
neighborhood, where a Roman Catholic church 
stood which had been closed by order of the 
orthodox authorities as recently as the year 
1892. The priest had been led away by the 
police, his house confiscated, all his devotional 
books likewise done away with, and the very 
church locked and sealed. As in Sledzianov, 
however, under the same impulse, the church 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 299 

had been opened again early in the morning, 
and the people united there in saying their 
prayers and doing other acts of devotion. The 
crowd here was as great as elsewhere, for the 
neighborhood soon got wind of what had hap- 
pened ; but here, as elsewhere along the western 
frontier of Russia, there is always a convenient 
regiment of cavalry, and this body was called 
into requisition by the police. The soldiers 
were ordered to clear the church, but the un- 
armed peasantry resisted by locking arms around 
the church-yard and offering their helpless bod- 
ies as a resisting wall to the sabres of their Rus- 
sian conquerors. The soldiers attacked these 
people with cold steel, and were answered by a 
few stones from a distance. One blow led to 
another, and soon about the sacred premises was 
a hand-to-hand battle, armed men with helpless 
peasants — a conflict so unequal as to soon ter- 
minate. Here, as in Sledzianov, when the power 
of the soldiers had been asserted, a number of 
peasants was selected, and in the presence of 
their relatives stripped and flogged with Cossack 
whips until the police judged that their spirit 
was sufficiently crushed to render them in future 
submissive and loyal. 

The police made a strong effort to arrest those 
who were suspected of opening the doors of the 
church. Whether they got the right ones or not 
is not known, but they have arrested some, and 



300 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

these will probably never see their home or any 
of their friends again, excepting in Siberia. 

Unfortunately for the cause of liberty, the 
Germans of the Baltic provinces, the Lithuani- 
ans, and the Poles hate one another almost as 
bitterly as each, individually, dreads the process 
of Russification. They are carefully isolated 
one from the other by a system of press censor- 
ship and police quarantine, so that co-opera- 
tion between Warsaw, Kovno, and Riga is almost 
physically impossible, even assuming that the 
three races here represented could be brought to 
merge their religious differences for the sake of 
taking common action against the all-absorbing 
orthodoxy. These three suffering parties are 
separated not merely by race and religion, but, 
beyond that, are so completely overrun by of- 
ficials, police, and soldiers, that not a letter can 
be sent, not a meeting held, not a newspaper 
put into type, without imminent risk of impris- 
onment or banishment. Two friends I have in 
Russia dare not send me the most innocent com- 
munications for fear of being therefor called to 
account by the secret police, and when by good- 
fortune I do hear anything from Russia, I notice 
that the letter is always posted in Germany, 
having been first taken across the frontier by 
safe hands. 

One would suppose that the persecution now 
going on in Russia would rouse the people of 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 30t 

Germany — Protestants and Catholics alike — to 
such a storm of indignation as would result in 
mass-meetings and demonstrations. Yet Ger- 
mans, so far, have been rather apathetic, owing 
to the difficulty of securing reliable informa- 
tion from their fellow-countrymen in Russia, but 
principally from the policy of Prince Bismarck, 
who when in power never failed to show his 
subserviency to Russia, and indifference to the 
fate of his coreligionists on the Baltic. Of the 
Poles he never spoke without contempt, and con- 
sidered that the sooner they were extinguished 
the better for all concerned. 

Last summer a German official who had been 
for many years stationed on the Vistula, at the 
fortress of Thorn, close to the Polish frontier, 
told me that Bismarck when in power always 
seconded the Russian police when they claimed 
any fugitives from Russian so-called justice. 
Many of these poor political refugees, anticipa- 
ting arrest, floated down the Vistula from War- 
saw, and imagined that in a constitutional coun- 
try like Germany they would find at least a fair 
trial. Bismarck, however, as foreign minister, 
seized such poor wretches on the ground that 
they were dangerous to the peace of Germany, 
and must be expelled. Of course he might have 
expelled them on the French, Swiss, Dutch, or 
Danish frontiers, but with a casuistry cruel in 
its refinement he ordered them to be taken to 



302 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

the Russian frontier, where the czar's police re- 
ceived them. Under the present government of 
Caprivi there has been no disposition manifested 
of pursuing this brutal policy, and it is to be 
hoped that the annals of German administration 
will never again be stained by measures so medi- 
aeval and heartless as those which were too com- 
mon in the days of the Iron Chancellor. 

To explain Bismarck's hatred of the Poles, one 
must understand his dread of revolution, for he 
cannot imagine a people governed otherwise 
than by violence. To him there is no man so 
dangerous as one who thinks for himself, or who 
organizes to redress a grievance. In the early 
part of November, 1892, Bismarck said of him- 
self that he once strongly urged upon the em- 
perors of both Germany and Russia to hold to- 
gether in a firm alliance because " in the interests 
of monarchy they had more to gain in combat- 
ing revolution than by separating for purposes 
of conquest." Bismarck is one of those great 
men who forget nothing and learn nothing. He 
remembers that Prussia joined with Russia in 
partitioning Poland and in suppressing the strug- 
gles for liberty in that country. He saw that 
through overwhelming numbers successive re- 
bellions were put down, and he fancied that 
peace secured at such a price could be enduring. 
He has not learned the secret of conservatism in 
a people as it exists in the United States, in 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 303 

England, in Scandinavia, in Australia, Canada, 
and other free countries. In his own country 
he had been twenty years fighting Socialism by 
means of suppression, and yet was too blind to 
see that these brutal measures only made Social- 
ism more dangerous. He does not seem to see 
the enormous sacrifices which the Poles have 
made for the last hundred years for their inde- 
pendence, and, above all, their liberty of con- 
science. In the interview from which I quote 
he says : " The enemies of peace with Germany 
are, in Russia, only the Jews, and particularly the 
Poles. The Poles are cleverer, more cultivated, 
and have more tact than the Russians; they are 
masters of conspiracy and deception. . . . They 
pretend to be friendly with us at present, be- 
cause they wish us to conquer Russia and restore 
to them their country," and so on. 

For thirty years Bismarck has carefully poi- 
soned the mind of Germans against Poland by 
pretending that the people of that country were 
conspiring all the time against monarchy and 
against society. Had the press of Germany been 
free during all these years, there would have 
been papers prepared to refute indignantly this 
charge against a noble people; but in the absence 
of contradiction, stories against Poland were pub- 
lished over and over again, until the present gen- 
eration has almost as imperfect an idea of that 
country as France has of Germany. Prussians 



304 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

have fought three wars against Poland within 
a hundred years, and in war time, needless to 
say, the conquering army does not see the most 
lovely qualities among the people whose coun- 
try they are invading. The Protestant Lithuani- 
ans and Germans of the Baltic provinces are only 
now beginning to feel sympathy for Poland ; 
now that both are so miserable that they have 
memory for nothing but their common wrongs. 
In the days of their prosperity the Baltic Ger- 
mans were very loyal to the czar, and sternly 
set their face against Polish rebellion. Their 
liberties were so well founded, they thought, and 
their prosperity so great, that they dared not 
jeopardize the one or the other by appearing to 
feel sympathy for the czar's enemies. Little did 
they dream, in the reign of Alexander II., that 
in a few short years Russian priests would be 
forbidding the erection of Protestant chapels, 
imprisoning their pastors and school-teachers, 
and sending to jail their most moderate and cul- 
tivated men, for simply protesting against the 
violation of their constitution. The Russian czar 
is bent upon war, or at least is pursuing a pol- 
icy which can only end with this result — either 
civil war or foreign, perhaps both. It may seem 
strange that God permits in our day religious 
persecution that would have disgraced the age 
of Philip II. or Bloody Mary; but perhaps it is 
only through such an ordeal as this that the vie- 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN RUSSIA 305 

tims who are now groaning under the Russian 
yoke can be brought to recognize the duties 
which one Christian owes to another, to forget the 
many savage disputes that have marred the rela- 
tions of Poles and Germans, and to merge minor 
religious differences in the great struggle for 
constitutional liberty. The great lesson of toler- 
ance is sadly needed in Poland and in the Baltic 
provinces as well as in St. Petersburg ; and it 
may be in the scheme of the Almighty to bring 
about a better feeling between the two great 
branches of Christians by a co-operation of 
Catholics and Protestants, standing shoulder to 
shoulder in Christian brotherhood, over against a 
Church whose high-priest is the czar, and whose 
purpose is to make of Europe a Russian prov- 
ince. 



RUSSIFICATION 

THE POLISH AND THE GERMAN CHAPTER 

AT half-past four of a chilly, misty morning, on 
the banks of the muddy Memel, without 
breakfast — is it strange that we should have been 
cross? We were in Kovno, the much-bespied 
Russian fortress ; Remington * was making a 
surreptitious sketch at the head of the long 
bridge of boats, over which Napoleon's army 
must have crossed in June of 1812. In fact, we 
thought we could distinguish the very hill on 
which the conqueror stood when, in person, he 
directed the operations of his great army. There 
was nothing very wrong in sketching a hill as- 
sociated with the presence of Napoleon I., but 
I happened to know that, in a semicircle to the 
south of where we stood, on the opposite side 
of this muddy stream, the czar was putting fin- 
ishing touches to a chain of seven forts, the 
line of which is about three miles distant from 
the centre of the town. I happened also to know 
that, in the previous week, two Germans had 

* Frederic Remington, the artist. 



RUSSIFICATION 307 

been arrested for inadvertently trespassing on 
fortress ground, and that Russians make scant 
distinctions between accident and design in the 
case of people caught wandering about powder- 
magazines and embrasures. Under the circum- 
stances, neither of us had the slightest desire to 
push our investigations beyond reasonable limits 
— we both longed to get out of Russia as quickly 
as possible. 

Kovno has a monument on which is written : 
" Russia was invaded in 18 12 by an army of 700,- 
000 men. That army went back with 70,000." 
The preparations now making to receive another 
enemy indicate that Russia does not mean Ger- 
mans or Austrians to enter beyond this river. 
In 1812 Napoleon advanced until mud and hun- 
ger compelled him to give up. This time Russia 
means to meet her enemy on a line of forts 
stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. 
They may be roughly outlined as commencing at 
Riga and ending at the mouth of the Danube. 
Those who imagine that Russia will once more 
retire and draw her enemy into the interior are 
vastly mistaken, for in that case why spend 
enormous sums upon fortresses on the western 
frontier? Why make of Kovno another Metz ? 

As I rolled this in my mind, I lifted from my 
shoulder the masts and sails of my canoe, and 
tossed the clumsy load upon what I took to be a 
pile of corn sacks covered with tarpaulin. To 



308 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

my amazement a short, sharp scream came from 
beneath the canvas — a woman's voice, I thought. 
At such an hour and under such circumstances 
my curiosity was roused, particularly as the 
creature beneath did not stir, and the sound was 
not repeated. Not a soul, not even a police- 
man, was about ; so I raised a corner of the cov- 
ering, and discovered the crouching form of a 
frightened mother, hugging a little child to her 
breast. Remington was absorbed in his illegiti- 
mate thumb-nail work, and apparently had not 
noticed the episode. I was about apolgizing for 
my clumsiness, when the little mother, in an agi- 
tated manner, said : 

" Indeed, sir, I have done nothing. I have my 
ticket. I am waiting for my uncle." 

It was pitiful to notice her distress of manner, 
the evidence of having been hunted by human 
blood-hounds. Of course I told her immediately 
that she quite mistook my calling. I was not a 
detective — merely an American traveller trying 
to get out of the country with the least possible 
delay. The hunted look did not disappear, for 
she was still in Russia — in fact, in the military 
department of Vilna, amid a garrison of 100,000 
men. But she seemed to feel that I, at least, 
would do her no harm. She was at first shy of 
Remington, but in time I made her believe that 
he, too, feared a howling Apache less than he did 
the most shrinking of women. 



RUSSIFICATION 309 

We were friends in misery, and, as I mention no 
names, I may add that she was pretty in spite of 
the bedraggled appearance of her hair and skirts. 

" But what in the world brings you to spend 
the night in the mud on the river-bank under a 
dirty tarpaulin ?" I asked. 

This question made her again shy ; but she 
was by this time partaking of my bread and sau- 
sage, and soon concluded to take me into her 
confidence. 

" My husband," said she, "is off in the town 
with the Jews. He has no pass. He is going to 
cross the frontier to-night." 

"Yes, but what about you and the little 
one?" 

" Oh ! I am waiting for some one — there is a 
raft coming down the river, the captain of which 
has promised to take me on board and carry me 
to Tilsit. He is an honest man — a German ; I 
must not go with my husband across the frontier 
— I could not help him, and might lose my 
baby " — with which words she kissed the little 
one, sleeping sweetly at her breast. 

Of course by this time I was wrought up to a 
high fever of romantic anticipation, and wished 
to ask all manner of questions, but just then the 
expected raft hove in sight through the river 
mist ; almost simultaneously a long and narrow 
dug-out canoe ran its nose ashore at our feet ; 
a strong, bearded man plied a stern-paddle, and 



310 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

in a few seconds mother and child disappeared 
out upon the swift stream of the muddy river. 

It was lucky for the two that they disappeared 
as they did, for the morning was wearing along 
rapidly, and soon the bridge of boats became 
animated with peasants and also soldiers. Uni- 
forms seemed to spring from every street open- 
ing, and we began to feel as though Kovno was 
little more than a very dirty barrack. I should 
not, however, forget to mention the Jews, who 
also wear uniforms, by-the-way, and who number 
25,000 out of a total population of barely 50,000. 

Soon, however, a little flat-bottomed Russian 
steamer paddled away with us down the river, 
and I watched my fellow- passengers narrowly. 
Of course there were several uniforms, many 
Jews and peasants, and a few whom I could not 
quite make out. Among these an intelligent- 
looking man of about thirty happened to sit near 
me, as I sipped a cup of coffee, and from him I 
sought information. His answers were polite, 
his manner rather reserved — until, by an acci- 
dent, he gathered that I was an American, when 
he admitted that he was a Pole, and commenced 
to talk freely. He was not, however, quite sure 
of me until I mentioned one or two of my friends 
at Warsaw, whom he regarded as leaders of his 
national party. Then he confessed to me that 
he was trying to get into Germany that night. 

"Then," said I, " I have the honor of knowing 



RUSSIFICATION 311 

your wife !" With which, to his great relief, I re- 
lated her successful departure from the Kovno 
river-bank, in charge of the black-bearded boat- 
man. " But why do you smuggle yourself out 
of the country?" I asked. "Could you not have 
accompanied your wife?" 

He smiled bitterly, and answered : 

" She can be smuggled more easily than I can, 
for she is a woman. I may .escape to-night, if 
the police are stupid enough, but at any point 
of this river I am liable to seizure by any official 
clever enough to recognize me." 

"You don't look like a criminal," said I. 

" No, but worse than that, I am a Pole, and 
my country is being ' Russified.' ' 

I had nothing to say to this. 

He paused a moment, passed his hand across 
his eyes wearily, looked at me fixedly, and then 
commenced again : 

" My father, along with every respectable man 
in the country, fought for Polish independence 
in 1863. We gave the Russians a hard fight for 
it, but finally, with the assistance of Prussia and 
Bismarck, they got us down and began to kick 
the life out of us. My father was killed by a 
Cossack — a handsome young man he was. Of 
course I was only a baby then, but my moth- 
er brought me up to honor his memory and 
be loyal to my country, my religion, and my 
mother-tongue. 



312 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

" Well, our estates were confiscated ; my moth- 
er struggled along for a time upon the little ready 
money she had saved, but died of a broken heart 
in a few years. I was dismissed from the sci- 
entific school in Warsaw because some Russian 
sneak told the teacher that I talked Polish in 
forbidden hours. Of course I should have been 
more careful, but they probably would have re- 
fused me a degree anyhow, as any excuse is found 
good enough when the object is to turn out a 
Pole and put in a Russian — at least, in Warsaw. 

" My dismissal made it impossible for me to 
complete my education anywhere in Russia, 
and I had not the means to go abroad for the 
purpose. Money I had very little, so I became 
a machinist, and by keeping my mouth shut 
finally secured a pretty good position in one of 
the mills at Lodz. 

" Do you know much about Lodz?" he asked. 

I had to admit that Lodz had been to me but 
the name of a manufacturing town of Poland, 
and that I had never been nearer to it than 
Skernevitze. 

" Well," said he, " it has about 120,000 people, 
nearly all of whom work in the factories there. 
It lies between Warsaw and the German frontier, 
and in the track of an army invading from the 
west. Although so important a centre of man- 
ufacture, the government does not connect it 
with the railway system of Europe, but allows it 



RUSSIFICATION 313 

to trade only to the eastward — that is what we 
call Russian protection. You may measure the 
importance of Lodz when I tell you that the 
woollen -mil] in which I was a superintendent 
employed 8000 hands! 

" Well, the police have always kept a sharp 
eye on Lodz because it is so close to the frontier, 
and because it contains so many intelligent work- 
men of Polish and German antecedents. It was 
felt that, in the event of war, the town would 
organize a welcome to the German emperor, and 
be an important base for the manufacture of 
contraband material. The Russian governor at 
Warsaw, General Gurko, did everything a brutal 
soldier could think of, therefore, to discourage 
any but orthodox Russian appointments in our 
neighborhood. The police had most ample pow- 
ers to arrest and transport any one suspected of 
unorthodox views — in fact, to-day not a man can 
get an appointment or promotion of any kind 
without police permission. By dint of persist- 
ent and judicious bribing, we had jogged along 
well enough; but on the 1st of May [1892] the 
operatives had arranged for a labor-day celebra- 
tion. That was unfortunate, particularly as they 
concluded to strike on the 2d for a day's work of 
ten hours." 

I objected that I could see no reason why men 
should not strike for any wages they pleased, so 
long as they did not violate the law. 



314 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

''You misunderstand me," rejoined my Polish 
companion ; " I was thinking of the military sit- 
uation. Lodz, though a mere industrial town, 
has for its protection a brigade of field artillery, 
a battery of horse artillery, a regiment of in- 
fantry ; Cossacks and dragoons to an indefi- 
nite extent, within a few hours' ride, and is shut 
up in a military department that keeps 130,000 
men under arms ready to march at short notice. 
General Gurko enjoys shooting Poles and Turks 
equally, and to give him any excuse for sending 
troops to Lodz was unfortunate." 

" But why have I heard nothing of all this ?" 
asked I. 

" Because General Gurko does not edit news- 
papers for the benefit of the unorthodox," an- 
swered he, smiling. " No Polish or Russian pa- 
per has ventured to discuss the matter, and if 
you ever see anything about it, you may be sure 
that it was smuggled across the frontier by the 
Jews. But, as I was saying, the strike com- 
menced on the 2d of May. The men behaved 
well enough, and it seemed to me that the mat- 
ter would be amicably arranged by a fair compro- 
mise. But General Gurko had evidently other 
ideas, and telegraphed from Warsaw that the 
employers should not yield anything. He then 
marched a column of Cossacks upon the place, 
and gave the military authorities telegraphic 
orders not to be afraid of using ball-cartridges. 



RUSSIFICATION 



315 



These items of intelligence somehow or other 
leaked out among the men, and converted what 
was originally but a domestic difference into a war 
against the common enemy. Germans and Poles 
were smarting under the indignities they had 
suffered at Russian hands ; the troops quartered 
about them were not Polish — on the contrary, 
they were men brought from Russian orthodox 
neighborhoods, and animated with fanatical ha- 
tred against the people among whom they were 
quartered. 

" You ask, perhaps, where are our brothers, 
now serving in the czar's army? Anywhere but 
in Poland. Some along the Volga, some in the 
Caucasus, some in Turkestan — but always far 
away, beyond the cry of their wretched fellow- 
countrymen. 

"The strike soon became serious, and it seems 
to me that the government intended to provoke 
the trouble that ensued. They employed police 
agents who pretended to be working-men, and 
sought to inflame the mob against the Jews; 
but this did not work ; they were prepared for it. 
Afterwards, by a strange accident, the inmates 
of an adjacent penal colony were turned loose in 
the town and commenced plundering. Mean- 
time the popular feeling against the troops grew 
to such a pitch that, when a squadron of Cos- 
sacks was ordered to charge, they were met by 
desperate civilians armed with nothing more ef- 



316 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

fective than pocket-knives. The soldiers dashed 
in among the mass of men, women, and children, 
but rage seemed to have made us all forget the 
sense of fear. While Cossacks used sabres and 
revolvers, the strikers answered by stabbing with 
their knives until overpowered. It was sad to 
see the noble horses fall, but I felt little pity for 
the men who rode them. Eighty soldiers were 
killed in that week, and two hundred wounded — 
how many of the towns-people I cannot say, but 
many times as many, I am sure, for the strike 
lasted a week. 

" The government did what was possible to 
provoke disorder, and then took advantage of it 
to set the soldiers on us. It is an old trick in 
Russia, and always serves its purposes. This 
time the troops and police had more to do than 
usual, but the end was clearly foreseen. As soon 
as the smoke had cleared away, houses were 
searched and arrests were made wholesale. All 
foreigners were promptly expelled, and about 
three hundred Germans escorted to the frontier. 
Being the son of a Polish patriot, I was arrested 
as a matter of course, and condemned by a 
drum-head court-martial to Siberia, along with a 
hundred or so of my compatriots. It so happened 
that I had taken no part in the labor demonstra- 
tion beyond being in the streets in the interest 
of my factory. No investigation was made of 
my case, but it was assumed that I had better 



RUSSIFICATION ' 317 

leave Lodz, and therefore I was condemned. My 
wife was, of course, nearly distracted, for our 
child is only about a year old, and banishment 
to Siberia meant for her a punishment more 
severe than death. 

" But Russian tyranny is marvellously tem- 
pered for those who have ready money. My 
wife had some savings at home, and a Jew horse- 
dealer did the rest. One night, as the prison- 
ers were whispering together over the intending 
tramp to Siberia, the jailer came in, touched my 
shoulder, and said I was to follow him. We 
passed into a room where we were alone. He 
handed me a letter from my wife, saying that I 
should do as I was told, and trust the man who 
drove me. The words were ambiguous, but I 
was satisfied. My eyes were blindfolded, my 
arm seized, and I was marched out of doors. 
The way seemed long, and not a word was ex- 
changed. At length we stopped, I heard some 
whispering, some paper money crumpled, my 
arm was seized by a second person, the jailer's 
steps were heard retiring. Then my bandage 
was at length removed, but it was too dark to 
see anything. A voice in my ear whispered 
'Your wife is in the drosky — there is also an 
officer's cap and overcoat — the guards will let 
you pass — you can catch the Austrian express for 
Warsaw at Koluszki — the rest you can manage 
— all is paid for.' This hurried explanation took 



318 THE BORDERLAN.D OF CZAR AND KAISER 

place close to where a drosky had halted. I 
jumped in, the driver started his three horses 
into their smartest pace, and, for the moment, I 
enjoyed freedom and happiness with wife and 
child. We bumped along the road merrily, and 
accepted with dignity the salute of the Cossack 
sentinel, who was too stupid to suspect any- 
thing wrong under my military disguise. He 
naturally supposed me to be a drunken officer 
indulging my thirst for pleasure. And so we 
escaped from Lodz, though it did seem hard to 
leave dozens of honest companions behind, who 
are now on the road to Siberia, simply because 
they could not arrange to bribe their jailers, as 
my wife did for me." 

"But how did you manage the bribery?" I 
asked. 

"Nothing simpler," answered he. "I can do 
anything in Poland, provided I have one or two 
rubles and one or two Jews. The Jews under- 
stand brokerage of every kind, and if you will 
take the trouble to study them and their ways, 
you soon discover them to be exceedingly use- 
ful under such a tyranny as the Russian. You 
or I, for instance, might have tried to bribe the 
jailer in such a blunt and clumsy manner as to 
have wasted not merely our money, but time as 
well. Or, what is worse, we might have given 
money in advance, and have had to pay double. 
In my case the Jew paid nothing until my body 



RUSSIFICATION 319 

was delivered up at the drosky door, and then 
he paid only the market price, charging me the 
usual commission, perhaps ioo per cent." 

" But how do you manage about crossing the 
frontier?" I asked. 

" This is not quite so simple, yet less danger- 
ous at this point than others. There is an ex- 
tensive smuggling trade all along the western 
Russian border, one of the popular articles being 
tea from Konigsberg, which is afterwards sold 
as caravan tea. Jews make the best smugglers, 
for obvious reasons ; they will smuggle anything 
excepting revolutionary literature. Nowadays, a 
trade has sprung up that is very profitable — 
smuggling emigrants out of the country. This 
trade has assumed very large dimensions since 
the accession of Alexander III., and grows with 
every effort to Russify his subjects. It is safe 
to say that at least 100,000 have crossed the 
frontier at night during the last year, to say 
nothing of those who go by day with legitimate 
passes." 

" But cannot every one get a pass?" I asked. 

" They can, by paying for it ; but it costs 
about 25 rubles, which is a great deal of money. 
To the peasant that represents two or three 
months' wages, at least. And even if he has 
that amount of money, the police do everything 
they can to prevent his leaving the country. 
They demand of him all sorts of certificates — of 



320 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

birth, baptism, residence, occupation, etc., which 
the most prudent man sometimes loses. Even if 
the poor devil has his certificates the police are 
sure to invent some charge upon which the peas- 
ant has to appear and pay a fine. In short, the 
innocent, along with the guilty, find it easier 
and cheaper to sneak across the border with the 
Jew smugglers, and run the risk of being shot, 
rather than attempt the journey in a legal man- 
ner. I suppose you have nothing of the kind in 
America, where every one is free?" 

I had to admit that the Chinese entered the 
United States from British Columbia in very 
much the same manner, but that on the Pacific 
coast Chinese were supposed to have very wicked 
minds and no souls. 

" But how do you make sure that the smug- 
glers will not betray you to the frontier police ?" 
I asked. 

" Some do get cheated," he answered, " but 
that is because they are careless. When I came 
to Kovno I immediately made my agreement 
with a Jew, who promised to see me across the 
frontier, and for this I was to pay ten rubles. 
But I did not pay it to him — that would have 
been foolish. He took me to a rabbi, who is 
much respected here for his honesty, and to him 
I paid the money. The rabbi then gave me a 
token, a little bit of glass, which I keep on my 
person, and only give up to the smuggler after 



RUSSIFICATION 32 I 

he has seen me safe over the line. Then I sur- 
render my token to the smuggler, who receives 
the ten rubles from the rabbi on presentation 
of the token, and not before. In this way the 
whole transaction is consummated without any 
paper that might prove awkward in case of capt- 
ure." 

"But is it not wrong for a rabbi to lend him- 
self to smuggling?" 

" Who says anything about smuggling ? I 
handed the rabbi ten rubles ; he receipted for 
it by handing me a piece of glass ; he pays the 
ten rubles out again to any one who brings him 
this identical bit of glass ! There is nothing il- 
legal in that. All the police of Russia would fail 
to hold him on such a charge. But, besides, you 
must remember that you are in a country where 
no trade of any kind can be transacted without 
lying and bribing ; the government leads the way 
in rascality of every kind, and if you expect the 
Jews to be outwitted by Russian police, you will 
be much mistaken. 

Our little steamer had been winding in and 
out among shallows, dodging the great rafts that 
come down from the Minsk forests, and we were 
nearing the frontier. The steamer suddenly 
turned towards the bank. 

" Good-bye !" said my friend ; " perhaps I shall 
meet you in America. Two smugglers are to 
slip off here ; I go with them ; we shall make for 



322 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

the woods and take our chances when it is dark 
— good-bye !" 

The steamer closed well with the right bank, 
so that the counter extended over the land. A 
long boat-hook was planted in the mud ; my 
friend seized it ; one, two, three were counted, 
and with the help of the steamer's mate he was 
pushed off towards the shore, landing safely. 
The two Jews followed, using the big boat-hook 
as a vaulting-pole. The last Jew fell on his back 
in the mud ; their bags and bundles were tum- 
bled after them, the wheels revolved once more, 
and in a few moments the three lonely figures 
were out of sight. I asked the captain why he 
dropped passengers at that point. 

" Oh, it is near to their village !" I thought 
he winked as he said this, but am not quite sure. 

Later on, that evening, Remington and I were 
ploughing through the deep sandy track that 
runs from Jurburg to the Prussian frontier. The 
distance was about six miles — all of it through a 
wilderness of pine forest, in which the only creat- 
ures we passed was a squadron of cavalry quar- 
tered in a long, straggling row of peasant huts. 
Our driver was a venerable Jew, in a long gabar- 
dine, curly hair falling upon his shoulders, a silk 
cap, a curl in front of each ear, a pair of top- 
boots. 

"Smuggling," said he, " is the only business 
at which we can earn a living. The people live 



RUSSIFICATION 



3*3 



by it, and it helps pay the salaries of the police. 
We sometimes get shot, but one must do some- 
thing for a living. The Russian government 
compels all the Jews to live only in a small part 
of Russia. The struggle for life is terrible here 
— so terrible that plenty of men spend theirs 
carrying loads in and out of Prussia." 

"Are there many soldiers on the frontier?" 
I asked. 

" They are so thick," he said, " that I wonder 
they do not shoot one another by mistake. Ev- 
ery thousand feet brings you to a picket close to 
the line ; then two miles behind that is a cordon 
made of two foot-soldiers to every one cavalry- 
man, and eight miles back of the frontier is a 
complete line of Cossack or dragoon cavalry ; 
so you see, even if the first line is evaded, there 
are two more left to catch you." 

Suddenly, in the midst of the forest, we came 
upon a log-hut, in front of which were two high 
posts. The road, or sand-trail, was here barred 
by a heavy chain, and a soldier mounted guard 
by its side. Remington and I were ordered to 
stop, enter the hut, have our baggage searched, 
and our passports scrutinized. As this occupied 
an hour, I had ample time to note that every 
passenger arriving from Prussia not merely had 
his baggage searched, but his very person ex- 
amined ; under his armpits, down his back, to 
his very skin. I had seen Chinamen treated in 



324 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

this brutal manner on landing in San Francisco 
before the passing of the Exclusion Bill, but I 
had not expected to find it elsewhere, not even 
in Russia. As Remington and I were travelling 
on "special" passports, signed by the secretary 
of state, and as Russia had just received four 
cargoes of wheat as a present from our country 
to her starving people, we had looked forward to 
some consideration at the hands of the officials ; 
but, so far as I could gather, they had never 
heard of America or our cargoes ; the censor, 
perhaps, regarded both as suspicious. One of the 
customs officials spoke bad German and meant to 
be polite ; the chief, however, had the features 
of a Persian, was disfigured by scrofula, and had 
the amiability of an Apache. The only sign of 
happiness he gave was when the report of a rifle 
came through the woods. 

" Another Jew," he said, and grinned the grin 
of a mean-spirited brute who knew that when a 
smuggler was shot part of his pack fell to the 
share of the customs official. 

That shot struck my Polish friend — nothing 
but a flesh wound, however. The two Jews 
helped him on, he was close to the frontier, and 
three days afterwards I shook hands with him at 
Konigsberg, on his way to Hamburg. He was 
beaming with happiness, his wife and child were 
with him, his arm was in a sling, but doing well. 
He was sustained by the thought that at last he 



RUSSIFICATION 325 

was beyond the reach of a Russian policeman, 
and would soon be in a country where Russifica- 
tion was unknown. 

Shortly after the Polish insurrection of 1830, 
in which the German provinces had no share, 
the Czar Nicholas concluded to Russify on a 
large scale, and sent, therefore, as chief of the 
whole educational system of the Baltic provinces, 
an illiterate Russian general. He began with 
the university at Dorpat,* the model university 
of the country, and ordered (1835) that hence- 
forth professors and students should appear only 
in military uniform. Dorpat was founded in the 
same year as Yale, and has been conducted to 
this day in the same enlightened spirit. Im- 
agine President Dwight, at New Haven, receiv- 
ing from the New York Board of Aldermen an 
order to appear henceforth only in the regalia of 
St. Patrick ; it could not produce a greater sen- 
sation than was produced when this great Ger- 
man seat of learning was handed over into the 
coarse hands of a professional soldier for prompt 
Russification. Henceforth the Russian language 
was obligatory, and the appointment of profess- 
ors rested no longer with the faculty, but with 
the military director. 

So much for the cause of popular education. 



* Since writing this the very name Dorpat has been suppressed, 
and a Russian one ordered in its stead. 



326 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

The seed planted by that Russian general has 
been nursed and watered by others equally hos- 
tile to German culture, and the laws passed in 
the last few years should surprise no one familiar 
with the spirit of laws passed during the last fifty 
or one hundred years. 

The religious Russification has a history al- 
most as painful as that of Dorpat University and 
the schools, but want of space forbids my en- 
tering on it here. The whole country is Protes- 
tant from time immemorial, and jogged along 
very happily with its Lutheran clergymen, who 
felt secure from orthodox intrigue because they 
trusted the promises of successive czars. One 
fine day in 1836, however, news came that Riga, 
the chief commercial town of the Baltic prov- 
inces, was to have an orthodox bishop, and that a 
seminary for Greek priests was also to be erected 
near by. To be sure, there were scarcely any 
orthodox worshippers, but the priests were confi- 
dent that, with* the police and the name of the 
czar behind them, they would soon make the 
Lutherans feel their power — and they did. 

The year 1841 came. There had been three 
years of very bad harvest ; the peasants in re- 
mote villages were in a desperate condition ; 
there was much discontent on all sides, and, as is 
usual in such a state of things, the fault is al- 
ways laid at the door of the landlord, or the em- 
ployer of labor. When things were at their 



RUSSIFICATION 327 

worst, the Greek priests sent crafty emissaries 
throughout the distressed regions, much as the 
Jesuits do in China. These told the ignorant 
peasants that the czar had millions of acres of rich 
land in the warm South for all those who were 
loyal to him, and believed as he believed. Pretty 
soon peasants commenced to appear in the town, 
applying to the authorities for free farms in the 
promised land of sunshine and deep soil. But 
the secular authorities knew nothing of the trick 
by which the Greek priests had lured them from 
their country, and, of course, told them they had 
been fooled, and must go home. The poor peo- 
ple had, in many cases, sold everything in order 
to make the journey, and felt desperate when 
told they had been duped. As they turned 
away from the town -hall, however, they were 
steered by a priestly decoy to the orthodox 
quarter ; the promise of land was repeated — all 
they were to do was to be baptized in the faith 
of the czar. The priest told them how wicked 
it was to have a different religion from that of 
the emperor, and that all those who held the 
orthodox faith had rather a good time in this 
world, and a sure thing in the world to come. 

Now all such propaganda would in ordinary 
times have been wasted, but after three years of 
hard times, and with minds unsettled by prom- 
ises of fertile lands, the orthodox priests had an 
opportunity of the most exceptional kind. The 



328 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

argument which, however, swept away their con- 
scientious doubts most completely was that the 
czar personally desired them all to become of 
his religion, and that to be unorthodox was to be 
disloyal to their ruler. There were few Lith- 
uanian peasants who could resist such an appeal 
to their patriotism, for to such a one the czar's 
wish is law. To explain the conversions that 
became very numerous in the next few years, it 
must also be understood that, whereas the or- 
thodox priests moved about with the insolent 
assurance of representing the czar and his po- 
lice, the Lutheran clergy had no prestige beyond 
the province from which they drew their congre- 
gation and meagre pay. By the law of Russia 
they were not an independent power — merely 
a tolerated sect. The large mass of Lithua- 
nian peasants were Lutheran from habit ; few of 
them understood the grounds of their belief, as 
does the average New-Englander. Among these 
simple people went orthodox agents, who gave 
them the assurance that the Lutheran worship 
was substantially the same as the Greek, and that 
in changing they were only drawing nearer to 
their great father, the czar. And, indeed, during 
the early period of the orthodox propaganda, say 
from 1836 to 1846, the Greek priests allowed 
their converts from Protestantism to retain their 
Lutheran hymns, even to retain the reading of a 
sermon ; but this was done only as a decoy for 



RUSSIFICATION 329 

the others. The peasants went among their hes- 
itating neighbors saying that they had lost none 
of their old worship, but, on the contrary, had 
now a much easier time of it. 

The reader exclaims : " But why did not the 
Lutherans preach against the orthodox heresy?" 
They tried to, but their mouths were stopped 
by the orthodox police. Clergymen who dared 
criticise the Greek church, or even to enlighten 
their people upon the distinction between Prot- 
estantism and orthodoxy, were sent to jail. The 
Lutheran Church had its catechism suppressed 
by the police. Wherever the Lutheran Church 
came in conflict with the orthodox interests, the 
Russian police saw to it that the czar's cause did 
not suffer. The czar had the censor on his side, 
so that while his coreligionists might say what 
they chose against the religion of Luther, it was 
made a crime to make a defence against these 
attacks. 

The peasants found that the promises of rich 
lands were not kept, and that the orthodox 
priests were as greedy for money as other men. 
Many wanted to get back into their old Church, 
but it was too late. They had forfeited the right 
to think for themselves ; they were flogged if 
they attended a Lutheran worship, and it was 
a criminal act for a Lutheran clergyman to allow 
one of his former flock to return to him — to even 
let him attend service. If one of these newly- 



330 THE DORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

fledged orthodox peasantry married, the czar's 
Church claimed all the children, even though the 
mother were Protestant, and though the father 
desired his children to become Lutheran. 

The little picture I have given is matter of his- 
tory — it would seem to belong to the sixteenth 
century — yet it is a perfect reflection of what is 
going on to-day in the most civilized portion of 
the czar's dominion. 

The censorship has played an important part 
in the Russification of these provinces — even 
more injurious a part than in Russia. Shortly 
after the French Revolution the czar determined 
to stamp out all independent thinking, and com- 
menced his work in the Baltic provinces by sup- 
pressing a volume of Protestant sermons by M. 
Sontagg, a preacher who corresponded in Riga 
to Spurgeon in London or Beecher in Ameri- 
ca. Another clergyman was condemned to be 
flogged, and to hard labor in the penitentiary, be- 
cause in his library were found the works of La- 
fontaine. In 1800 all books, without exception, 
were shut out from the Baltic provinces, on the 
ground that there were already enough for prac- 
tical purposes. It was a hard law on those who 
had ordered books and paid in advance, but no 
exception was made. Fortunately, it lasted only 
four years, when the censor once more appeared, 
and with it comparative liberty. To give one an 
idea of how much is meant by this, it need only 



RUSSIFICATION 33 I 

be said that, under Nicholas, no paper was al- 
lowed to discuss foreign affairs ; the utmost al- 
lowed was to copy what had already appeared in 
the government gazette. No paper could men- 
tion any item of news about the court without 
first obtaining permission of the czar's chief pal- 
ace servant , no news of any kind could appear 
without first being submitted to the chief of the 
department whom it might affect directly or 
indirectly. If a ship was wrecked the minis- 
try of marine must be consulted ; if a pocket 
was picked, the police ; damage to crops comes 
within the province of the agricultural depart- 
ment ; when a military review takes place, noth- 
ing must be said until the secretary of war has 
been consulted. The censor is not materially 
different to-day, let us add in parenthesis. Here 
is an illustration : 

A distinguished political writer, the editor of 
the leading newspaper in western Russia, lately 
wrote an article (August, 1892) criticising Bis- 
marck for his obstructionistic attitude towards 
the German emperor and Caprivi. The writer 
is a man whose word I respect, and he told me 
the story at my own table, immediately on ar- 
rival across the Russian border. 

When he learned that his article had been 
suppressed he was very indignant, and there- 
fore called upon the president of the " censure," 
whom he knew very well, and who had always 



332 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

treated him with great consideration, owing to 
his high social and literary position. The con- 
versation was about as follows : 

Author : " I know that I have no right to ask your excellency 
about a suppressed work, but if your excellency would be so 
good as to make an exception in my case — " 

Censor : " But, my dear friend, why in the world should you 
to-day write an article against Bismarck ?" 

Author: " Because, your excellency, I am a Monarchist, and 
Bismarck seeks to undermine the influence of a monarch !" 

Censor : " It never struck me from that standpoint. But why 
do you not show your love for monarchy by studying our gracious 
majesty, the czar ?" 

Author: "Because, as your excellency is aware, the police 
forbid my writing anything whatsoever about the czar. I may 
only copy the Court Circular." 

Censor : " H'm, true, I did not think of that. But you cannot 
print the article against Bismarck." 

Author : " But would not your excellency kindly hint the rea- 
son, so that in future my pen may conform more fully with your 
excellency's views ?" 

Censor: " No, I should not ; but still, as an old friend, you 
may as well know: the government regards your criticism of 
Bismarck as an indirect approval of the German emperor. Now, 
you must know that his majesty the czar does not desire to 
have the German emperor praised, directly or indirectly. Good- 
morning !" 

My friend returns to Russia in a few days, and 
as I do not wish to hear of his being sent to 
jail or Siberia, I am forced to keep to myself 
many details that would put the police on his 
track. It is sufficiently illustrative of Russian 
journalism, however, to know that nothing can 



RUSSIFICATION 333 

come to print about the German emperor that 
does not abuse him personally, or at least praise 
his enemies. 

Not long since, on the occasion of dedicating 
a Protestant church in the Baltic provinces, the 
clergyman, thinking thereby to emphasize the tol- 
erance of the community, as well as the friendly 
ties uniting all sections, used these words : 

" It is an elevating thought that, not merely 
Protestants, but orthodox and Jews, have helped 
us in the building of this edifice, by giving us 
money contributions." 

The censor regarded this sentiment as an in- 
sult to the czar's coreligionists, and suppressed 
the report of the affair in the Dorpat news- 
paper. On another occasion, a statistical table 
had been prepared with great care, discussing 
the future careers of students in the Baltic 
schools according to nationalities. The censor 
suppressed it because Russians appeared unfa- 
vorably as compared with those of German ex- 
traction. This is as comical as though the ne- 
groes of Louisiana caused the suppression of 
our decennial census because the whites of Mas- 
sachusetts appeared to advantage. 

Imagine now the happiness of the theatre- 
manager who makes himself responsible for the 
rent of the building and the wages of his players. 
He dares not risk much in the purchase of a 
new play, for before it can be produced it must 



334 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

be sent to St. Petersburg for approval, and after 
it is performed it is still subject to be suppressed 
at any moment if a costume, a gesture, an in- 
flection, a local hit, or any trifle should, in the 
mind of the local police, be calculated to pro- 
duce unfavorable comparison between the gov- 
ernment of the czar and that of any one else. 
Out of two hundred plays sent by one theatre- 
director alone, in Mitau, scarcely twenty came 
back with the requisite license, and it took many 
months to accomplish even this much. Did 
the Russian police act in this manner because 
they consider theatres a means of improper rec- 
reation ? Not in the least. The Russian police 
encourage licentiousness to any extent, from 
dram-shops to houses of ill-fame. They seek 
their friends in the conquered countries, not 
among the respectable and constructive ele- 
ments of society, but among the dissolute and 
degraded. The censorship they exercise is not 
to keep from publicity impure sentiments or in- 
decent suggestion ; these are to be found in 
every resort of Russian officials. What the cen- 
sor does not allow, however, is any public ex- 
pression that savors of reasoning. One play is for- 
bidden because it suggests nationality ; another 
because it suggests patriotism — both obviously 
inflammatory concepts in the minds of oppressed 
people. A play referring favorably either to the 
Protestant or Catholic clergy cannot be toler- 



RUSSIFICATION 



335 



ated because it suggests comparison with that 
of the czar. No play can be produced calcu- 
lated to weaken respect for the monarch, his 
ministers, his police, or his officials ; in fact, we 
can hardly imagine a modern farce which the 
Russian censor would not be able to construe 
as dangerous to the peace of what he is pleased 
to regard as society. There is hardly a play of 
Shakespeare that could be played in Riga to- 
day, to say nothing of the comedies that sparkle 
at theatres like Daly's in New York. Every 
night, in every theatre of the Baltic provinces, 
there sits a government spy to report if any- 
thing is done, either on or off the stage, calcu- 
lated to strengthen German or weaken Russian 
influence. Under these circumstances, is it likely 
that dramatic art should flourish ? Yet, on the 
Baltic, as in Poland, the people have ceased pro- 
testing on this point — they have begun to an- 
ticipate the time when their very mother-tongue 
will be forbidden, not only in the school, but in 
the pulpit and on the stage. 

The aggravating feature of Russian censorship 
is not merely that the censors arc, as a ride, 
grossly illiterate people, but that the honestly 
patriotic writer is never protected against ca- 
price. For instance, one article discussed the 
life of the agitator Alexander Herzen, considered 
him a bad man, an enthusiast, but still considered 
that he was honest. For allowing him this one 



336 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

attribute the police of St. Petersburg were indig- 
nant. Another paper in its columns stated that 
the Roman revolution progressed bravely. Down 
came the censor, and remarked that bravery in 
connection with any revolution was ridiculous 
and inflammatory. In the university town of 
Dorpat the censor forbade the publication of 
the programme of the Communists of Paris in 
1848, although the censors in St. Petersburg had 
passed it there. The reason was that, while good 
Russians might hear such news, it might prove 
inflammatory in a province of persecuted Ger- 
mans. 

A Jewish pawnbroker advertised a sale — 
among other things of a church organ. Censor 
struck out the word church, substituting instead 
the word large. Reason given was that the pres- 
ence of a church organ at a Jew sale was calculat- 
ed to undermine respect for religion. Another 
paper in Mitau announced the arrival of the 
governor- general in the same list with those of 
other notable arrivals. Censor struck the name 
out, on the ground that it was calculated to de- 
crease the dignity of the czar's government if a 
high official's name appeared along with that of 
ordinary people. 

An article on France declared the word Jac- 
querie as meaning a species of peasant rebellion. 
The censor struck the whole passage out as be- 
ing superfluous — as suggesting disorder. 



RUSSIFICATION 337 

Another paper stated that crabs turned red 
when boiled, turning red with shame at having 
gone backward so much. The censor struck 
this out, for to every German reader the crab 
could only refer to the government of the Rus- 
sian czar ! An interesting admission under any 
circumstances. 

Police censorship is much stricter to-day than 
it was when Prussia and Russia joined hands in 
hunting down what they were jointly pleased to 
consider political heresy. In the early part of this 
century Prussian official newspapers were regard- 
ed in Russia as quite fit for perusal, even by 
people in the Baltic provinces. To-day, however, 
the literature of Germany is regarded as more 
deadly to Russian peace than even that of re- 
publican France, to say nothing of England and 
America. 

The memorandum-book of a censor, now dead, 
came curiously to light on our side of the fron- 
tier a short time since. He appears to have 
been an honest man, and in his dying moments 
so pricked by a sense of his past wickedness 
that by way of smoothing his path into eternity 
he resolved to expose some of the deviltry of 
which he was made a tool. One fine day he was 
sent, in company with a police colonel from St. 
Petersburg to Riga, with orders to inspect every 
library, and see that nothing dangerous was be- 
ing read in this commercial centre of the Baltic 



338 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

provinces. Riga is a seaport town with 175,000 
intelligent and industrious people. It has a fa- 
mous polytechnic or scientific school, three col- 
leges, and many schools and learned societies. 
This fact made it appear the more dangerous to 
the "Third Section " in St. Petersburg, and it was 
determined to suddenly search the town, just as 
the rooms of students and editors are periodi- 
cally broken into in Moscow or Odessa. The 
police mission was, of course, kept a secret, and 
the governor at Riga was ordered to put all the 
local police agencies into action, in orde-r that as 
much should be discovered as possible. A raid 
was made at the same time upon the university 
town of Dorpat, the centre of intellectual activ- 
ity not only in the Baltic provinces but of all 
Russia. Its library has 200,000 volumes, its fac- 
ulties have compared favorably with those of 
Heidelberg or Gottingen, its astronomical ob- 
servatory is one of the best in the world. If 
any spot might be regarded as deserving fair 
treatment, even in Russia, Dorpat surely was, for 
its constitution had been, repeatedly guaranteed 
by the solemn promises of successive czars since 
Peter the Great. 

But the fanatical zeal for Russification would 
not be limited by mere promises, and so it hap- 
pened that, one night in July, at exactly eleven 
o'clock, the censor and police agent arrived, and 
immediately placed their seal upon the doors of 



RUSSIFICATION 



339 



the three chief booksellers, as well as those of 
the leading circulating library. The book-dealers 
not only had to have their places closed while 
each title-page was being scrutinized and com- 
pared with the list of permitted or forbidden 
books, but they had to furnish the police with 
their cash-books and ledgers, to tell what books 
they had sold, what were ordered, and for whom. 
It turned out, in the course of a fortnight, that 
over one thousand books were regarded as either 
forbidden, suspected, or unknown to the czar's 
censors. But, worse than that, about a hundred 
forbidden books had been sold. The police now 
ransacked every private house to get these back ; 
the booksellers had to pay a heavy fine, and the 
confiscated books were carted to St. Petersburg 
to the library of the " Third Section." Remem- 
bering that Dorpat is a quiet little seat of learn- 
ing, with a population of barely 30,000, we may 
imagine the indignation caused by closing every 
book-shop for two weeks, and having the houses 
of men of letters ransacked by policemen. And 
what were the books which the czar regarded as 
poisonous to the orthodox mind? Among them 
we find those of Louis Blanc, Proudhon, Lamar- 
tine, Heine, and, as the wickedest of all, Thiers's 
famous history of the Napoleonic era, The Con- 
sulate and Empire. Imagine the pleasure of 
literary life in a country where it is a crime to 
read such books. It is needless to say that the 



34-0 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

police hunted particularly for every book that 
did not speak well of Russian government. 

On the 9th of July the literary inquisition was 
opened in Riga. There were 200,000 volumes 
to inspect, 2300 business letters to read, and 
5500 invoices to compare. From the 9th to the 
20th the police occupied every book-shop in the 
Baltic capital, and finally carted off to St. Peters- 
burg 2042 confiscated works — among these 619 
not exactly forbidden, but simply confiscated 
because the local censor knew nothing about 
them, and therefore presumed them to be he- 
retical. Oddly enough, many of the books confis- 
cated had been bought under orders for Russian 
seats of learning in the interior, Kieff University 
among others. The St. Petersburg police were 
furious at hearing that 2000 dangerous books 
had been found in Riga, and secured from the 
czar an order to close every book-shop in the 
town. This meant bankruptcy. The blockade 
lasted four months — only on Christmas Eve did 
the czar suspend his judgment, too late, how- 
ever, for the sellers to profit by the general 
Christmas trade. In suspending the measure, how- 
ever, he ordered the arrest of every bookseller, 
pending a police investigation, which lasted two 
years and one month, after which they were all 
set at liberty upon paying a handsome fine. 

Does not one's blood boil at reading of such 
disgraceful government— all done in the name of 



RUSSIFICATION 341 

Russification ? Think of the hundreds of school- 
children who cannot buy the books for their 
classes ; the professional men who find them- 
selves incapable of receiving the latest contribu- 
tion in their particular department. The Chinese 
emperor who built the Great Wall destroyed all 
the books he could find in order that future ages 
might regard him as the first man in history. 
Russian monarchs act in an even more drastic 
manner — they do not only suppress the books 
that have been, but take equal pains that their 
own generation shall produce none worth read- 
ing. 

And what were these 2000 books confiscat- 
ed at Riga? Among them were 131 copies 
of Thiers's History of the Consulate and Em- 
pire, and 94 Thiers's History of the Revolution. 
There were 91 volumes of Lamartine's History 
of the Girondists, and 652 parts of a popular 
encyclopaedia. Here alone are 1000 out of the 
2004 accounted for — all confiscated as being 
dangerous to the czar's government — yet books 
deemed suitable for the library of a civilized 
student in any other part of the world. 

Had the censor and his policemen confined 
themselves to legal procedure the outrage upon 
decency would have been great, but in the in- 
stance I cite even the Russian governor-general 
protested to the czar that every form of law was 
trampled underfoot, that honest and leading cit- 



342 THE BORDERLAND OF CZAR AND KAISER 

izens were condemned and punished without a 
trial, and that their private papers were ransacked 
by the police without the slightest legal warrant. 
His protest accomplished nothing, unless we re- 
gard as clemency two years' arrest, a fine, and a 
four months' closing of shop. 

And all this took place, and is daily repeating 
itself, in a land living under the most solemn 
guarantees from successive Russian monarchs ! 

The key-note is " Russification " in school, 
Church, university, and public service. The year 
before France and Germany went to war, or, to 
be accurate, on the 15th of October, 1869, the 
adjutant of Alexander II., General Albedinsky, 
formulated a programme for checking the Prot- 
estant and German aspirations of these prov- 
inces — concluding with the advice that the czar 
should not be bound by the pledges of his an- 
cestors, but — " That the Baltic provinces should 
be melted into the Russian empire uncondition- 
ally and irrevocably." This has been Russian 
policy here as in Poland, and it has been grow- 
ing in severity and brutality during the years 
that Bismarck sought to make his people and his 
emperor believe that Russia was a good friend to 
Germany and German civilization. The cries of 
persecuted Germans found no echo in the heart of 
the Iron Chancellor — he was persecuting his own 
enemies so hotly that he had no time to attend 
to the sufferings of those beyond his frontier. 



RUSSIFICATION 343 

Bismarck, happily for his country, is no longer 
the German government, and there are signs in 
the political firmament indicating that the Ger- 
many of to-day will not remain much longer si- 
lent while fellow - creatures of kindred blood, 
language, and faith are crying desperately for 
help, only a few miles from their eastern towns. 
The German emperor has already notified his 
neighbors that humanity has upon him claims 
quite as sacred as those of statecraft, and every 
man who loves liberty must surely long for the 
moment when he shall demand an explanation 
in St. Petersburg of the long series of diabolical 
acts of official cruelty perpetrated in the name of 
" Russification." 



THE END 






sKHfflp*-- P 




